dancing in the wind (haibun)

© dverse Poets Pub,View of the church of Saint Paul de Mausole 1889 – private collection of Elizabeth Taylor

The sun is smiling today. There is still an extra hour of bright colours before I am forced to retire to the gloom of old church dorms. I must hurry and not waste time in the narrows of my mind! It is time to capture what my heart might see some day…again. Oh to have lived among the life of such hints, once sparked my life.

The sky is bursting with bright aqua and the sun is so bright it dominates the clouds. Billows smile in her golden glow. Oh how I would love to be there some day and run through the fields with my lover. Hand in hand skipping like youngsters again. Oh, to be young again and soulfully alive.

It is a good harvest, I overheard a farmer say to the cook last week. And yes, I can see the wealth of wheat so much prettier in the fields; blow, blow wind! Run while you still can until we meet again in the grey pit of my breakfast bowl where only milk and brown sugar will turn you into a shade of mud.

feel nature’s pulse
golden wheat waltz
lilt of the wind

Dverse Poets – Monday Haibun

November Haibun #3

THE WALTZING WIND – Michiel Merkies – Piano Solos volume 1

day’s end (haibun – haiga)

It’s not even three in the afternoon and already the day is ready to close right before my eyes. Sadly, I watch the clouds get darker from my window. Even the cars passing by on the boulevard are louder. I hear a humming that was not there in the summer. I just realized this a few days ago, it is the winter tires that make the traffic sound louder and soon I will be hearing the studded tires crackling along on the pavement too.

As the season gets darker, bleaker, barren and colourless perhaps the sounds seem more acute as well notwithstanding those studded tires of course.

humming lullabies
daylight slowly sinks –
sleep well

Coming of age (haibun)

She thinks of times her muse would visit and literally just take over. Looking over old poems of various forms, she has no choice but to believe this must be so because of the depth and eloquence of some poetry. No, it must be some spiritual intervention, that has to be the answer.

September had thirty days of haiga and that may have forced the hand of her muse a bit. Then she dared to attempt the challenge of 31 days of poetry at OctPoWriMo and now she is feeling the crunch. Her muse may be a little passive aggressive. And she should be! Why should she expect her muse to produce “on command”? And so she waits tonight at one in the morning …

humble insights,
pen cannot scratch the surface
muse is ripe

muse is ripe
wildflower blossoms
even in autumn

Written for Ronovan Writes Poetry prompt 68 – Hiaku – Pen & Muse

shaking the blues (haibun)

Feeling this heavy weight this morning makes it difficult to find her get up and go. She shuffles to the shower, hoping to wash off fragments of gloom and doom. Caffeine doesn’t even work. She puts on her coat and wraps her long scarf around her to brave the cool autumn air on her way to work.

© Cheryl-Lynn R.'15 — © Cheryl-Lynn R.’15

grey clouds linger
trees brave autumn winds
shaking off the blues

Written for Monday Writes

forgotten dreams (haibun – shadorma)

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

B & P Shadorma & Beyond and MindloveMiserysMenagerie

soupçon de mélancholie (haibun)

It’s been getting colder in the past week. Nights have dipped below freezing point and she has mixed feelings about that. Ragweed allergies will finally cease; daytime walks are still splattered with colours but the nights walking home from her late shifts will now be cold.

On her way back from her favourite grocery, Thai Foo, greens in her backpack, she cannot not help but notice sweeping changes with nature around her. Many trees have lost most of their leaves, and the late bloomers who also shed the latest, still hold some beautiful colours. The yellow turned to a dark orangey tint, the maples were an even brighter red and one tree she could not name had yellowed leaves with dark brown strips of seeds hanging. It truly looked like a Hallowe’en decoration. How totally apropos, she thought.

She knew there was about a week left of signs of life through tints and hues. After October 31^st…the goblins will have eaten up most of life’s colours. November will prowl like rodents lurking garbage bins; life will appear barren day by day. She admires the last photos she took today, wishing this week could drag on a few more months. Le mois des morts(the month of the dead) is what they call November in her region.

novembre se faufile
soupçon de mélancolie
envahit

November slips in
drop of melancholy
spills over

Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefeuille and MindlovemiserysMenagerie

Mystery junkie (haibun)

Imagine your own private film on a bus, Métro, jet plane, train or ferry boat.

She used to be addicted to reading mostly mystery thrillers, to the point of binging on two to three a week on average…so yes, sometimes there were more. It was the one thing she could do to shut off her mind and slip away into another’s person’s world. I was sitting in my private cinema viewing my personal film.

This craving subsided eventually three years ago when she rediscovered writing and blogging.

riveting tales
sinks into a comfy couch
mystery binge

Red carpet festival (haibun – haiga)

She decided to walk to her voting station today rather than take a bus. The sky was such a vibrant blue, so intense and the midday sun added softness. It was chilly at 6 degrees C but dressed in layers, a good scarf, her comfy Doc Martens and sunglasses she was in her own world. Now and then she would pear over her glasses to see the real colour of the sky because through her glasses is was dark blue turquoise. That reminded her when she went to St-Marten…thoughts that rose the temperature slightly, or was it the brisk speed of her walk?

Checking the time, she knew she had time to walk the 30 minute walk and hopefully there would not be a line up at the polls giving her time to catch the bus to get to work. She had to stop a moment to take photos of the fallen leaves. She was kicking herself for not leaving earlier to walk slower to take in the beautiful autumn colours; suddenly her boots crunched on a red carpet laid out just for her. It felt like a festival of remembrance.

peeling arms,
tokens of burning passions
summer’s past

CDHK

Sensual Feeling (Cascade – haibun – Troiku)

( Cascade )

music feeds the soul and moves the body
instigating spells on her existence
rhythm and blues sink into her essence
that’s when she got a taste of true freedom

searching in all the wrong places for release
it’s always been there, free for the taking
cannot be purchased in stores or on-line
music feeds the soul and moves the body

she was in limbo for too many years
fighting urges to act impulsively
until she explored deep into her soul
instigating spells on her existence

she found herself one lonely afternoon
taking out her old turntable she played
Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson
rhythm and blues sink into her essence

it felt like being possessed by these tunes
her body moved mindlessly and freely
swayed to Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing
that’s when she got a taste of true freedom

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

A Cascade reminds me a bit of a Troiku, so I also added the sense of “freedom” one gets from dancing to being midst nature and all its beauty with a Troiku.

(Haibun – troiku)

Nature offers such freedom that dance does liberating the soul, reacquainting with one’s inner child and admiring as if seeing for the first time. Before such liberation, one walks around with jaded lenses. What a joy to “see” again the vibrant colours and experiences of each season.

(Troiku)

nature’s charm
grace of a butterfly
golden blossoms sigh

nature’s charm
seduced the lonely woman
long last – awakened

grace of a butterfly
tickled the child within
made her gasp

golden blossoms sigh
daisies coo – Pick Me, Pick Me
tranquil bliss

OctPoWriMo #17

“Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.” ― Rumi

Family Thanksgiving (haibun)

She loves Thanksgiving. It is a time for her adult children and their partners, her grandsons and even the children’s father to come together. She prepares food for days; sets up the guest room for the boys to play and have fun while the adults eat much slower as they talk of this and that that are of no interest to young boys.

It is better than Christmas because there is no pressure of gift giving and commercialization and the roads are still clean of any snow or ice. It is simply a wonderful meal with many the season’s harvest, pumpkin, squash, yams, cabbage and apples including wine from les Vignoble du Marathonien in Havelock in the Eastern Townships. They are all thankful for this nice long weekend break in the middle of autumn, time to drive through hilly roads admiring the mountains with splashes of red, yellow and amber.

She is the cook and hostess serving one and all. Adults joking and enjoying each other`s company, but the children know who the real life of the party is…

lifting their glasses,
voices rise with laughter
winks at her grandsons

Carpe Diem Special Tom D’Evelyn’s essay BASHO

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