risks taken in our youth (Tan Renga)

railway-15
Photo from MindLoveMiserysMenagerie

Winter rice fields–
railroad tracks running
a level above them
(c) Shiki

whistle echoes from afar
teens quickly sneak across

©Tournesol’16/05/05

Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille at MindLoveMiserysMenagerie

facade (troiku)

5694935622_5ab00710f0_b
Carnival in Venice -29 by Stefan Insam CC BY-SA 2.0

(troiku)

masking facade
bold yet striking
hollow eyes

masking facade
hiding frowns
liquid tears

bold yet striking
her last
charade

hollow eyes
death of the soul
disemboweled

© Tournesol ’16/03/03

Photo challenge – MindLoveMiserysMenagerie

© Clr '14-12-11
© Clr ’14-12-11

snowflakes on his tongue
makes her quiver
licking white doilies

Although the cold is often avoided, once she gets her warm clothes to weather these frigid temperatures, she finds pleasure walking on fresh fallen snow. Watching the skaters on the new rink the city put up next to her work is sheer delight.   Early evening, youngsters are playing hockey and late evening, older couples are skating hand in hand. It brings her back in time, long ago watching her uncle skating on the river under a full moon with is girlfriend. How corny of her to ask if she could tag along but, hey, they accepted, and she thinks the deal breaker for her uncle was that his niece accept this lovely new femme fatal. And boy was she beautiful with her natural blond hair and liquid blue eyes. (sigh) Her heart goes pitter patter remembering those days, long ago when she believed in love and a prince charming.

Skating, tobogganing, snow shoeing up Mont Rougemont, cross-country skiing on Mount Bruno  take up so much time that by mid-March it`s a shock that spring is already around the corner. So much fun in a season commonly known for cold weather and shut-ins, well, not this year. Romance trickles over onto another season where relationships blossom with the scent of amour!

stroll among maple trees
feeling each other’s heartbeat
sap trickles promise

©Tournesol ’16/01/15

(232 words)

Prompt challenge with Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille at MindLoveMiserysMenagerie:

We are to write a haibun inspired on the proverb “time flies if you have fun”. And (of course) here are a few restrictions to it. Here they are:

1. start with a haiku and end with a haiku
2. try to place your haibun (and the haiku) in one of the four seasons, you may choose the season yourself
3. your haibun may have a maximum of 250 words, including the haiku.

Trick or Treat (Tan Renga)

© Clr'15  Taken 2008 at work
© Clr’15 Taken 2008 at work

cobwebbed stairwells
children playing “dress-up”– shout!
trick or treat!

old lady adjusts her hat
well, now my little pretties!

© Tournesol ’15

Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille at MindLoveMiserysMenagerie

forgotten dreams (haibun – shadorma)

© MindLoveMiserysMenagerie – Collage 9

The church was filled with people of her past, close friends, colleagues and family. It felt so bizarre being in this house of worship. This was where she received five sacraments…only one left to go. The voice of the priest interrupted her thoughts now and then.
At the reception a few old high school friends offered their condolences. Her first high school sweetheart looked like a caricature of his teen-self decades ago adding jowls and lots of wrinkles on this stranger’s face. She was touched by his presence; his husband was introduced to me too. How life was different then, she thought. At least today society seems a little more open. Leaving a small, gossipy and unforgiving town helps too.

(shadorma)
young lovers
wishing life were fair
eagerly
expecting
sweet innocent love affairs
dreams just may come true

That night she rummaged through her bedroom closet and took out her old childhood jewelry box. Sitting on the bed, she opened it and tears streamed her face as the music box played Lara’s Theme. Looking through the old memories, she held a pin her mother had given her when she had “become a woman”. It was their secret. She held it in her hands and still felt the warmth and love they shared together, that very special bond.

She smiled at a postcard her best friend in Grade 9 had sent her when she had met her first love that summer long ago. She cranked up the music box to feel she was back there in her childhood bedroom years ago. Her fingers felt the sharp edges of the Eiffel Tower. Her art teacher had given her this hoping she would take her gift in painting seriously…she never did get around to that after college…life happened.
At the bottom of the jewelry box was an old photo…her mind traveled back in time.

that first kiss,
sealing promises of dreams
fairy-tale wonder

© Tournesol ’15

B & P Shadorma & Beyond and MindloveMiserysMenagerie

© MindLoveMiserysMenagerie – Collage 9

The river trail (troiku – haiga)

next bike path autumn

Troiku

along the river
autumn colours adorn
riverside path

along the river
water turning bluish grey
frigid ripples

autumn colours adorn
public parks and highways
nature’s last show

riverside path
bike trail runs along the keys
season’s last ride

© Tournesol ’15

bike path

Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille and MindLoveMiserysMenagerie

late frost ( Jisei)

This is the last haiku by Basho.  It is now known as his “death poem” or Jisei.

ill on a journey
my dreams start to wander
across desiccated fields

© Matsuo Basho (Tr. Chèvrefeuille)

It’s very common in classical  times that poets wrote their death-poem, the last poem of their life.

Here is our host’s Jisei

my dreams wander
along the path of my life …
Honeysuckle blooms

Honeysuckle blooms
sharing her sweet perfume
I dream away

© Chèvrefeuille

**********************

Today on my way to work I was shocked to see new blossoms in the thicket. Most of the flowers are dying except for sunflowers growing through the concrete in the street and tiny daisies among dead bushes.   The bees were busy kissing every flower they could find today and one lone blue butterfly winked at me.

a bed of daisies
unusual blossoms
end of season

a bed of daisies
lie in wait
like poppies

unusual blossoms
caress my weary bones
butterfly kiss

end of season
contemplating
a late frost

***

© Clr '15
© Clr ’15

heart aglow
 love still to spare –
liquid blues gaze,
purple veils magenta skies
  fading sunset

(c) Tournesol’15

MindLovesMiserysMenagerie & Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille

mon premier amour (haiku)

This serene painting  le poète allongé  captures a touching moment in the life of Marc Chagall, one of Russia’s greatest unconventional artists and his wife Bella Rosenfeld.

Completed during their honeymoon in 1915, it shows the artist reclining dreamily in front of the family’s dacha. He lies stretched on the grass, his body dramatically elongated, with the vast majority of the picture taken up with a violet sky and green pine forest landscape, home to a modest farmhouse and its animals.

Here is my second offering in this prompt at Heeding Haiku with Ha, a positive and dreamy version.

(haiku)

rosa bella
blushing bride sighs
lone pig squeals

~
time stands still
illicit dreams arouse
the old mare snorts

~
an artist’s vision
canvas scented pine
purple brush strokes 

© Tournesol ’15

slow melts ( haiga)

image

image

pets shed their coats
cars still tucked in hydro plugs
thaws like a slow dance

sub-zero nights help the sap
fun filled days at sugar shacks

daylight lingers
lovers dine in dark cafés
after sunsets

(c) Tournesol’15

image

Embracing emotions (haibun)

Heeding-haiku-with-Ha-emotions

One expresses emotions in varied ways and for some it is spontaneous and simply who they are.  Perhaps you are like me when you see someone you love and have not seen in a while, you run up to the person and hug them, kiss them on each cheek.

Overjoyed the morning I felt my son moving in my tummy…the basement of our new home had flooded and I could not hide my joy.  Could not relate to the damage, the flood or any problem whatsoever for a human life did somersaults in MY tummy!!

Oh how I weep with joy every time I see my daughter performing in a choir, when my son did a guitar solo and sang a Bob Dylan song, when they graduated both from high school and college;  and even today when I see them smiling and teasing each other…the joy just takes too much place in my heart and so I weep.

Perhaps your emotions are too close to the surface and your heart swells so much you weep the moment a word hurts your feelings; perhaps it is anger that is too difficult to conceal and you shout, rage or cry again. Maybe you have always felt life dealt you a raw deal and everyone and everything you touch must be for your loss, like a child who stomps off angry because Mommy would not let him eat candy before dinner.

And then there are those who do not express emotions as easily and it eats at them, festers and makes them sick…they are not “at ease” hence it stirs “dis-ease”.  The persons who cannot weep when they grieve, express their love when they long, show their joy when they are gripped with such a powerful love…yet to look at their body language, one cannot read the joy, happiness, rapture or sadness.

Sometimes I speak to a person who has gone through the most dreadful experiences in his past, heard such hurtful comments, witnessed such atrocities and yet I hear no emotion in the voice…flat, no affect whatsoever.  Over time the dam may open slowly when a person feels safe…In this case, a person had to hide all emotion to survive. To give in to emotion may weaken them and so life goes on with explosive emotions inflating  their soul…heart, like a ticking time bomb.

Emotions are not excluded to humans, and we can see that with animals that we love. It could be a horse you would groom for hours before riding, your dog you have walked, bathed like a baby and cuddled with a towel to keep them warm, a cat that leans in close to get a pet, a scratch but deep inside we know it is to be close to you…expressing their emotions in their loving and natural way.

My grandfather had rescued a golden mix a few years before got terminally ill.  GrandPapa died later in his bed at his home; when the ambulance came to take his body, Princess, the golden mix,  followed the cot whimpering along the side and then went running in the basement howling so loudly. She did not come up for a whole week, so great was her grief.

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confused and scared

a stranger whispers in her ear

“…luv you mum”

~

this frail body

seasoned with dementia

puckers her lips

****************************

beaming,

hand on her belly

feeling flip-flops

© Tournesol ’15

Heeding Haiku with HA ~ MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie