Relaxing in my living room, nursing an autumn cold, I cannot help but look in awe at the concert I witness in my patio window. I’m lucky because these trees lose their leaves in mid-November compared to many other bare trees in my area. I feel blessed at this time of year, to see such vibrant colours. But today they are jumping and doing backflips with that cold wind. People pass by snug in their winter parkas and tuques on their way to our local park. I have no intention to brave the cold.
I see the clouds moving and often they are dark and daunting…like a warning, “We’re coming to get you my little golden friends.” For some reason, I hear Dorothy’s witch cackling this. The end is near. The tween times are often difficult…the limbo of this season where we see darkness already by mid-afternoon, tree branches bare…no snow yet…and we wait during this transitional state . Thank goodness for Halloween and trick or treatres bringing joy and life to this time of year…
Until then, I feel blessed to see this vision of beauty Mother nature brings us each year.
Our host, Chèvrefeuille, at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, published the two winners of the Autumn Kukai last week. I have to say the winners’ masterpieces truly inspired me today. I find haiku is like an abstract painting. The artist knows what he or she is seeing and feeling at that very moment. The reader is like the admirer of the artist’s work, seeing and feeling the words painted on the canvas.
Both haiku inspired me to write. I could not help but see myself in the moment of each ku. Starting with the runner up, Sara McNulty who is a gifted poetess writing waka as well as other forms. I find her poems make you stop…and think.
steaming gold on chilled October evening mug of hot cider
Such a lovely and colourful image I see and remember coming home from school shuffling through falling leaves. The crisp air a sign of the season and walking into GrandMaman’s kitchen…
I’m reminded of November, where November 1st, All Saints’ Day seems to set the stage. Where saints are remembered and their ghosts hover over cemeteries and barren parks. Where naked trees have shed their colours and long bare arms outstretched like Jesus on the cross, weighs on our hearts. November days, damp and cold has not seen the first snow yet to soften the blow of endings.
tearful skies
November rains
say goodbye
And now, the winner’s haiku, Hamish Gunn who is a published author, storyteller and poet, writes a haiku that speaks to me. Yesterday, I wrote an entry in my personal journal on another blog and “letting go” seems to be a sign the universe is telling me in so many ways.
Any parent knows the feeling the first day you bring your child to daycare or school…that first day, that moment you see your child walk into a new setting without you and you still remember what you felt.
Of course at any stage of their lives, you remember those moments. I remember the first day my first-born went to nursery school, the first day at Kindergarten; and then my youngest at fifteen months, going to daycare for a few hours with her brother, wailing, clinging to my breast. Her brother watching over her like a big brother feeling her sorrow tries to make her smile.
tiny tot clings
mysteries of the unknown
pleading eyes well
mother’s reassuring smile
gently lets go
I could go on and on with so many life cycles with those three perfect lines, we learn/from autumn/ letting go but I will end with my mother’s passing in late autumn, on December 2nd, 2014. Typically, in Québec, we consider December winter but officially it is not until December 22nd, the shortest day of the year. So here I share a series of haiku in a form created by our host, Chèvrefeuille, called a Troiku.
mother’s last lesson
listen to leaves falling
in autumn
mother’s last lesson
teaching me
letting go
listen to leaves falling
return one last time
to Mother Earth
I’ve written a Troiku inspired both by Ramesh’s words and the photo below. To know more how to write a troiku which is a new form of haiku created by Chèvrefeuille, check on his website here Carpe Diem Haiku Kai
[…] “Last evening I was looking out from my balcony and saw a sparrow perch on a branch. All of a sudden, with a quick jerk, she ruffles her feathers and spreads out her wings – her bodyline on an upward curve, about to take off.” […] Kala Ramesh
Tournesol dans un Jardin 