Category: Narratives

Daily Moments Feb 12 /16 thinking of Janet (haiku)

This flash fiction was prompted by The Carrot Flash Fiction Challenge this week and we were to write about wild open spaces with a bonus if you could add something cute and furry.

The Witching Hour   (Flash Fiction 99 words – no more, no less)

It was approaching the witching hour that most parents dread.

“MOMMY!  Oli buggin me !” her toddler whined.

Oli snickered, proud he succeeded to put a dent in the mommy-daughter coziness since he arrived from JK.

It was only four-fifteen. She couldn’t take the squeals and whining.  She called her next-door neighbour, “Janet, I think I just might lose it.”

Janet let out her warm loving chuckle, “Send them over here and the girls will keep them busy.”

Biking towards the open fields, with each breath, she allowed her frustrations of the day to scatter over the wild daisies. (99 words)

Walking in the soft snow last night, I was reminded of our long winter walks at night, chatting about life and family. We would walk for hours.

Janet was a dear friend who kept me sane when my children were pre-schoolers.  She taught me to relax, stop trying to have the perfectly clean and tidy house and just enjoy the children. I am forever grateful to her and her family.  

This flash fiction inspired these haiku:

mother nature
wild and wondrous
takes me in

takes me in
warm and loving heart
a true friend

© Tournesol `16/02/12

Daily Moments – thinking of Janet Feb 12/16

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 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.

Indian Summer (haibun)

©Clr`15/12/08

Fallen leaves carpet grounds in ambers, except for those that hold on limbs for dear life. Parks are barren, missing squeals of youths and laughter among families. Park benches are abandoned by lovers, both young and old. Autumn’s melancholy mushrooms over time as winds blow mockingly. Suddenly, temperatures rise to unseasonal heights with warmer days, oh! so short-lived, teasing all things living.

Indian Summer squats
basking under sun kissed skies
Mother Nature lies.

© Tournesol’15/12/08

Six Sentence Stories “lie”

Six Sentence Stories at Unchartedblogdotorg

&

Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille at MindLoveMiserysMenagerie

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

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

(c) Clr’15
(c) Clr’15 September blossoms
(c) Clr’15 September blossoms
(c) Clr’15
(c) Clr’15 September blossoms
(c) Clr’15
(c) Clr’15

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

Joy recalled (haiku – tanka)

© Clr ' Rougemont apple blossoms
© Clr ‘ Rougemont apple blossoms

moments of delight
yesteryear or yesterday
joys reborn

bitter cold winters
darkness shrouds light of day
recalling blossoms
budding on apple trees
visions bring me back to joy

all those firsts
hearing “Mommy, I wuv you”
brings such joy

sun kissed skies
dewdrops on soft white petals
early dawn of joy

sunset
dips beneath blue azure
fluid hues of joy

© Tournesol ’15

Using our words for spreading joy at The SeekersDungeon

rather be (troiku)

I’d rather be…is the prompt at The Seekers Dungeon this week:

Troiku

rather be
living with less pain
lightening my days

rather be
poor and starving
than selfish

living with less pain
may not have been as caring,
empathy is gained

lightening my days
hearing music to my ears
love you Mom…Nana

© Tournesol ’15

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