Ramblings on life (haiga)

(haiku)

hot muggy day
spider finds a cool safe place
took a bubble bath

August sailing
gusty winds tense the jib
crow kissed a windshield

fly fidgets
buzzes around his arm.
SWAT!

spider spins
all night long diligently
Eureka!

children’s park
swings, teeter totters, slides
barbarian invasion

children giggling
bright coloured kites catch the sun
string floats silently

© Tournesol ’14

(free verse)

If I were an insect,
who knows how my life would end?
If I were a bird,
who knows how the wind would blow?
If I were a child living in the wrong part of the world,
who knows when my life would end?
Life is a gift for some,
a puzzle for so many,
an affliction for too many…

What life lends
may be a mystery
black and white blends
interesting and dreary
I can always count
on rivers to flow
on the sun to glow
sunsets sublime
and the moon to shine

originally published @ Tournesol dans un Jardin

Today’s Haiku posted at Blogspot

Today’s haiku posted on my blogspot blog, Tournesol Dans un jardin are here.

Tme Lingers, Pebble, Lovers’ sunsets, Truth , Cut

Time lingers (senryû)

Photo credits: Julie-de-Waroquier@DeviantArt

Better late then never, I say with this interesting photo prompt. Photo challenge #20 Time Goes by like a train, at Mind Love Misery’s Menagerie awakened my memories of living by the train tracks near my grandmother’s home. I used to run across as the gate was just coming down, bells ringing and the man in the tower shouting at me to stop but a few times, I still took a chance. How lucky I was not to end up like this though I just wrote…

railway crossing
yesteryear’s tragic loss
her ghost still walks

But this prompt’s title also inspires thoughts about time and we have had several haiku prompts from a few different blogs on “time” in the past weeks. This is what the photo with the title inspired…

summer days crawl
forlorn, waits for her lover
but time has stopped

Thank you, Yves, for this interesting photo challenge! I am slowly transferring all my short form poetry under the nom de plume, Tournesol @ Tournesol dans un jardin.

Luminescence – Tan Renga

Photo credits: WhiteDovesofModesto

Here is my post at Tournesol dans un jardin submitted for: Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge #46, Jamie Wieland’s “the glow of thedawn”

Winter Shelters (haibun)

Today the prompt is “forest” at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. Here is a beautiful haiku by our host of Carpe Diem:

listen to the wind
that moves through the forests –
buzzing mosquitos

(c) Olivier Gagnon - Rougemont, Québec '14 — (c) Olivier Gagnon – Rougemont, Québec ’14

I was trying to remember times I was deep in a forest besides camping. Then I recalled times when I used to cross country ski in the mountains…not huge ones, mind you…more hills…Mount St Bruno was such a lovely place to hike, snow shoe and ski. It has alpine skiing too even if it is a tiny mountain; it is lit up atnight and only 15 minutes from downtown Montreal. So that`s pretty cool.

My favourite place to cross country was in Rougemont, where my son actually lives now. You go up up up for a long time. But you do get in the forest quick enough and can shed a few layers of sweaters under that winter wind breaker. It is a great place to just sit and admire the scenery. And once you get high enough, then you go down down down for a long time…lt is not too steep so the descent is really lovely.

Cross country
against strong winds
forest shelters

(c) Tournesol ’14-08-08

Dynastie des grand-mères (haibun) (CP #534 Ancestors)

The prompt today is Ancestors at Carpe Diem and again Chèvrefeuille quotes a passage from Sand and Fom by Khalil Gibran.

{…} “Remembrance is a form of meeting”. {…}

Chèvrefeuille goes on to say that ancestors are a part of us. They are in our genes and will always be with us. They are in our mind and heart. They are part of us.

at the jumble sale
the photo of someone’s grandma,
she smiles at me

Dynastie des grand-mères

Absolute Arts

Ten years ago between Christmas and New Year’s my dad was rushed to the hospital for the last time. He had been sick for over two years. Having him phone me multiple times past midnight with belaboured breath was a common occurrence but as soon as I would drive up to his apartment forty minutes later, he would be sitting at his desk, heaving, yet, pleading that I not call 911. I had called once and they came for several minutes, saw my father’s pleading face with tears, so scared they would take him away . then they explained to me he was lucid and they had to respect his wishes.

That night Christmas week, he fell on the floor, unconscious and a neighbour called 911. It was only a few days before he was in a coma and my daughter announced she was expecting a baby. I knew…felt in my heart, she was carrying a boy. My father did January 3rd, 2004.

My daughter was living with me at the time in Toronto and she invited me to her monthly appointment to see her gynecologist. I was so excited, walking in with her to Women’s College Hospital, a ten minute walk to our respective jobs. {yes, I was lucky that she even worked downtown next to my work!}

The doctor put the monitor on her belly and we could hear a loud quick heartbeat. My whole being tingled and I wept with joy, at my grandchild’s heart beating. Later she gave me a snapshot of the ultrasound and it is the first photo in the baby album…well, after I had kept it on my fridge door for months, that is! Nanas have more brag rights than mothers and fathers.

His Tiny-Ness swimming,
in my daughter’s womb/
felt Dad beam

For those who have read earlier stories of my grandmother, know that she was a midwife and I was born in her house/bed. Lucky me! She was the same age I was when my daughter gave birth to my grandson. I was her labour coach…I felt GrandMaman’s presence so much with me during her long hours of labour.

Being with my daughter, I was filled with so many images, memories and visions of the past. It was like a book where one chapter is the present, the next chapter rewinds back to the past and the next chapter resumes to the present. It was such a powerful experience so difficult to express. For years when describing the birth of my grandson, I never had a chance to describe much before I would break down crying. It has been a few years now that I can manage to hold my own… well better.

If I were an artist I would have painted a portrait of a woman giving birth with shadows forward of another mother giving birth…I sketched it once but I am SO not an artist.

I kept shifting in time, from the birth of my daughter and son…the newness of giving birth to my son, the fear and worry; the anticipation of being induced with my daughter and wondering if I was having another son or a daughter . {No, I never wanted to know…I felt the curiosity may give me more incentive to push with more drive. The first thing I noticed alone with my baby girl, stripping off her nightie, diapers and tiny socks…examining every centimetre and thinking, “She will go through this same labour mixed with joy someday too.”

My grandmother was the same age I was when I became a grandmother; after her long illness of dementia and her death, I had not felt close to her; I missed her and somehow, I felt much closer to her since my grandson`s birth…closer than I had ever felt since her death

presence felt
she gave me a grandson/
GrandMaman.

life is (haiku)

life’s a miracle
death is inevitable
time will tell

Submitted for Heeding Haiku with Ha, at Mindlovemiserys Menagerie

Childhood scents (haibun)

I knew I was going to be a smoker eventually. When I was very young, sitting in the back seat of my father’s car, I couldn’t wait to have him light that first cigarette. The sweet scent of tobacco at just the first puff. (No worries I quit smoking a while ago)

Chevy Impala

red leather seats

Sweet Caporal

In the summer my mother was so busy hairdressing we would go swimming at the local pool. The river was reserved ONLY when adults were around. The pool was not the same, opening your eyes under water was such a habit in lakes and rivers but boy did it burn the eyes in the pool and the smell was so strong. It smelled like GrandMaman’s laundry room when she had to soak sheets for a long time to get them white.

blue water,

cement floor

laundry scents

When I was ten, we started camping, mostly close by weekends in Vermont but for vacation, we would head out every year to Old Orchard, Maine. The owner of a huge camp ground was friends with my parents and less than a mile from the ocean. I keep thinking of lobsters and steamed clams dipped in melted butter eating at the picnic table.

pine needles,

oil lantern heats the tent

salt water air.

GrandMaman had a huge vegetable garden not counting the flower beds. August until end of September was canning and pickling time for all her produce. The kitchen was always busy. I still don`t know how she managed to keep borders at her house, cook, clean, garden and still be a midwife. She had to stay busy to support herself since GrandPapa passed when I was 6.

hot stove and veggies

chez GrandMaman

vinegar stings

She often got a phone call late in the evening and I would often cry and plead with her not to go. She would wash, put baby powder as her choice of a midwife’s cologne…makes sense now that I think about it. She then put on her white uniform, white nylons and white “sensible” shoes.

Ivory soap

traces of pressed uniform,

baby powder lingers

My mother was a hairstylist and I grew up with our living room converted into a beauty salon. Still today, the lull of a hair dryer makes me sleepy, the smell of hair spray, permanent and hair dyes brings me back to the 1960’s. I still ask my hairdresser now and then if I can sweep the floor; brings me back to my youth and my chores.

shampoo, peroxide

hair spray, conditioners

hair dryer lulls

Of course when my mom would get ready to go out I knew she was going to be out late when she put on her make up, curling those eyelashes, painting her lips, fluffed her natural curly hair with her fingers…but that last touch…Youth Dew scent, that blue bottle…always put on too much…she loved perfumes!

Youth Dew Estee Lauder

lips tattoo my cheeks

softness of her creamed hands,

Youth Dew idles

Submitted for: Carpe Diem Ghost Writer 20 The Scent of Poetry

Same post can be found at Blogspot – Tournesol dans un jardin

Tranquility-Haiku (Carpe Diem TackleItTuesday #1 Serenity)

Sri Swami Sivananda (1887-1963)

This week the first episode of Tackle it Tuesday is Serenity and it is based on the philosophy of Sri Swami Sivananda (1887-1963) who composed the song of the 18-ity. He was born in the south of India an studied medicine. He worked as a doctor several years in Malaysia. After that he settled in Rishikesh at the foot of the Himalayans where he devoted his life to yoga and the spreading of it.

The first ity was serenity and the goal was to meditate and contemplate about this ity and become silent. Every ity needs a week (or a month) to learn. After you have done all 18 ‘ity, you start again with number one and so on. There will become a time that you have changed into a better person, more in balance.

deep silence

at the top of the mountain

I discover myself

centre on my breath

silence, picture open meadows

OM, I`m at one.

eyes closed

cross-legged, breath relaxed

tranquility

Submitted for: Carpe Diem TAckle it Tuesday #1 Serenity

just in time (haibun) CarpeDiem #532 Movement

Khalil Gibran wrote, “We measure time according to the movement of countless suns; and they measure time by little machines in their little pockets. Now tell me how could we ever meet at the same place at the same time?”

How true! We seem to always be focused on time. How fast we can get this done and that completed. When I am writing, I don’t measure my time but I do see that a whole day sometimes has passed me by on my day off. So what? I enjoyed myself; I was able to create and be inspired by my muse. And all this is free and it is not even fattening! I have earned my time to just be and if writing is one of those moments of `being`, so be it!

Years ago, I used to be a personal support worker in homecare. My favourite days were bath days and individuals would humbly allow me to help them with their personal hygiene. I would take my time…up to an hour many times. I felt privileged to be welcomed in their homes like that. I am pretty sure that today, thirty years later, this “time” is considered a rare luxury…sadly so.

I stopped wearing a watch when I had the children and was a stay at home mom for five years. I didn’t need a clock or a watch. Babies and children can easily determine their needs without a clock and so that is how life was then.

I remember when I first started working as a youth counsellor at our help line, I used to feel uneasy for talking a bit longer than some of my colleagues. Finally after three years, I had this amazing clinical supervisor who had watched me, observed my style and told me it was just the way I was. That was how I was able to engage with youths before they felt comfortable to disclose. When youth asks me if they are taking up too much time and feel they should let go, I tell them, “This call ends when you are finished sharing what you need to get off your chest, and we can find some options to help you through this.”

Sometimes we may be short-staffed due to illness and colleagues may worry seeing there are other callers waiting in the queue. I don’t look at that…I refuse to for I cannot be present with a youth if I my mind is wandering about caller number 2 or 3. I can ONLY take one call at a time and be with that person in a meaningful way.

Submitted for CarpeDiem # 532 Movement

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Here is my post at Tournesol dans un jardin submitted for: Carpe Diem Tan Renga Challenge #46, Jamie Wieland’s “the glow of thedawn”

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