I seem to be truly enjoying this new form of sets of haiku created by Chévrefeuille here at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai called the Troiku. As I sit here at a Café in the warmth looking out at the snow, I hesitate to leave. It is cold and I have to take a bus to get home and I also like the atmosphere here. It is so pleasant writing in this ambiance, hearing the saxophone blaring in the background with uninterrupted jazz melodies. I am a sucker for saxophones and base…it isn`t live music but the sound system is a good quality to drown the chatter of the patrons so I feel the company of jazz musicians and my thoughts percolating before my fingers dance on my keyboard.
(Troiku) evening idles
at the coffee shop
sipping un café
evening idles
swimming in my mind’s eye
writing
at the coffee shop
jazzy tunes fill the room
saxophone blares
sipping un café
gazing out the window
a poem trickles
When I was a young child we lived in a flat next door to the Franks family. Mr. and Mrs. Franks would work from May to October tirelessly in their garden. I had never seen such a garden that took their entire backyard. There was a small patio and the rest was all flowers. But not just any kind of flowers…tulips of so many colours. Mr. Franks would smile at me when I would dawdle by the fence. Well, hello, Mr. Franks, I would think to myself, I sure would love to have one of those yellow, white or red soft as silk tulips there. But he never seemed to read my mind and it was rude to ask, so I would walk up and down the dirt driveway very very slowly pretending I was searching for pebbles. The siren would blare at noon and still I would wait. Of course my mother would have to come out to call me in for lunch by now and she would see me by the fence; and as soon as my beautiful mother walked down the steps, Mr. Franks would lift his head and have the nicest smile. Actually I think his face lit up when he saw my mother. She would smile back and do what she did so often with her eyelashes (I tried for years to bat my lashes as quickly as she did but never succeeded!) Mr. Franks would prepare a bunch of tulips and hand them over the fence to my mother. Now it wasn’t Mr. Franks beaming but yours truly with a huge smile on my chubby face.
CLR 2014
long slender stems,
chubby face peeks in wonder
red and white tulips
red and white tulips
plead to be shown
in a crystal vase
Sometimes I find myself pensive and somber in thought. It is often after I wake up and have had several mysterious dreams that stir my psyche. I come to the kitchen and start running water to clean my counter and then fill the tub with sudsy hot water. I often take a few dirty items from my dishwasher and wash them by hand. My mind is still churning as I continue to process a thing or two that requires something soothing like the repetitive motions of washing dishes.
We often equate tranquil moments with nature. Living across the street from a shopping mall with a huge parking lot, I find solace in hearing the concert of three to four snow plows at night. The roaring actually lulls me to sleep. Who would have thought that gigantic machinery such as these mega snow plows could be my winter lullaby?
The first time I heard the honey toned voices singing along with an acoustic guitar, I was a block away sitting in a small Jazz lounge called Le Jazzons. Very low key place it was where I sat next to Victor Vogel as he jammed with other musicians after hours during the Montreal Jazz Festival. As I walked out the bar I heard the music coming from rue St Denis and saw a crowd at the front of a bar I was about to soon visit and fall prey to its charm.
The closer I got, I could hear why there was a crowd where they were singing along, most swaying and moving their hips to the music inside.
Blues is the type of music that I personally feel has no discrimination. I suppose Jazz is the same but in Montreal, I noticed more people of all walks of life packing into this small Bistro à JoJo on rue St Denis every night of the week. Oh, you can sit in afternoons too to listen to open jamming but after ten in the evening the place is hopping. It holds less than 100 patrons, so it is not rare to see people on the sidewalk listening to the music. This was a place I heard so many French and English people singing and talking together savouring the blues here.
posée au comptoir sirotant une Maudite le Blues m’apaisent
Manhattan reminds me a bit of Montreal (on a much smaller scale) in that it is an island, drivers are aggressive and honk their horns a lot and it is a city of music and food. Well to me anyway. Driving off the island to get on any bridge is similar to Montreal when there are twelve lanes that merge onto three lanes and they do it day in, day out as we do here too. So on a much smaller scale I do see similarities…I think NY has a better nightlife in all areas and that is where we differ here. We have a slower pace lifestyle and unlike our Canadian mega city, Toronto who follows more NY style rush rush rush…we have kept a bit of our ancestor’s mode de vie, vivre et laisser vivre.
weekend gig island of many lights stringing the blues serenade on the Hudson under midnight blue skies
* La Maudite is one of many beers brewed in Chambly, Québec by UniBroue. Chambly is the town where my children were raised. La Maudite is a stronger beer at 8% alcohol and Unibroue has other beers up to 10% however my favourite is La Blanche de Chambly at 5%; it is a wheaty beer tasting more like a Belgian beer.
Oh dear, she thought. Mother had to arrange this outing, now didn’t she? She looked at her second cousin, Emile Candiac in the photo with her blushing and pretending to be shy. If only they knew she was turning red from rage.
I wish she would devote more of her time making Father happy, instead she finds it is her duty to make me miserable. Well, I’ll hand to her, she has succeeded.
Can you imagine, how embarrassing this will be for me if word gets out at the sanatorium that I was escorted by Emile Candiac! All of my colleagues had refused courtships by him. He’s the laughing stock of our neighbourhood, let alone le Sanatorium Alphone Genest. Now I will be the joke of the town! Me! a second year resident nurse! They will all think I am so pathetic that my mother runs my social life as well as my personal life! Jesus, Mary, Joseph, what next? Will she order me to go to the New Year`s Eve ball with him as well? I must feign illness. I must!!
Mother thinks that at the age of twenty, I will be an old spinster if I am not wed. I don’t want to be tied down like she was so young. Is it my fault she was without a grain of intelligence or logic marrying Father at fifteen years old, a man thirty years her senior! Emile Candia is twenty years older than me and I am not interested in being courted or even considered for marriage with such dunce! An old disgusting one at that!
I’ve been saving from my meagre wages, to travel. Maybe I could go with some of the girls to the States. We could take the train and head out to Newport, Vermont for a weekend. That would be nice. I hear their fabric, especially cotton is of higher quality than in Canada and at reasonable costs.
Now how can I get the image of that disgusting photograph out of my mind?
“One of the first paintings of the view was Mountainous Landscape Behind Saint-Rémy, now in Copenhagen, which Van Gogh identified in a letter to his sister Wil from 16 June 1889 as hanging in his studio to dry. Two days later, he wrote to his brother that he had painted “a starry sky.” The Starry Night is the only nocturne painting in the series of views from his bedroom window. In early June Vincent wrote to Theo, “This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big.” Two scholars working independently of each other have determined that Venus was indeed visible in Provence in the spring of 1889. So the brightest “star” in the painting, just to the viewer’s right of the cypress tree, is actually Venus.
The moon is stylized, as astronomical records indicate that the moon was waning gibbous at the time Van Gogh painted the picture. Even if the phase of the moon had been a waning crescent at the time, Van Gogh’s moon is not astronomically correct. The one pictorial element that was definitely not visible from Van Gogh’s cell is the village, which is based on a sketch made from a hillside above the village of Saint-Rémy.”
Our host has written this haiku with this image and story in mind:
from the asylum
he observed the starry night –
seeking for the light
(c) Chèvrefeuille
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I love visiting my friends in the country. Their home faces five mountains and one is very close, Mont Bromont. They live dans un rang (a dirt road) lined with farms and vast meadows. Any season has its charm but in winter the only light we see at night are on the mountain where skiers ski at night. Streams of lights squirming in shapes and curves. I like to walk near the barn facing the cornfield now covered in white, looking up I try to locate the Big Dipper. It isn`t long before I am off in my starry world of fantasy and wonder.
This was the second drought in three years and Father said he may have to sell the farm. Mother was up in arms since it was her father’s father’s father’s farm when they immigrated from Ireland. The winters here in Canada were cold particularly in St Jacobs and the summers were scorcher. Unlike the cooler summers in Ballybunion. Father would argue with Mother, “But Luv, we have to be reasonable! Your forefathers were wise enough to save their life savings and leave their land before the famine sucked them dry. Now we may just have to make a sage decision as well. Maybe it`s time to just settle with some cattle. There is always money in beef.” Mother was silent but her body clearly stated how upset she was with Father.
Ellie was not waiting any longer for Father`s decisions. She was leaving at the end of summer which wold give her ample time to help her parents move. They knew she had a “pen pal” from Toronto and although they had let her take the bus for a visit a few times, they had no idea of Ellie’s plans to leave St Jacob’s.
Lindsay was actually more than a casual friend; Ellie had fallen in love…fallen hard. She was eighteen, fresh out of high school and ready to explore the world. Lindsay had already signed a lease for an apartment for the two of them and they would both go to George Brown College to study Hospitality and Culinary Arts. She loved baking and Lindsay`s strength was in cooking. They had it all planned. They would work in posh restaurants for five years, save their money and open a B & B north of Toronto in the country. More and more city people were paying an arm and a leg for a weekend getaway outside the city along with fine dining.
She would wait until a week before moving to announce her plans, and avoid any scene she may see from Mother especially; she was pretty sure Father would also be “disappointed with his little princess.” She looked up at the sky and it was almost like a warning of the storm she was moving into. Once her mother and father realized Lindsay was a girl, Ellie was prepared for the worst …a cyclone for sure.
In August during the hot air balloon festival in a neighbouring town, I would love watching dozens of balloons in the sky at dawn and just before sunset. I saw fewer in the morning but so many late afternoons. Behind our house was a vast field and it is said when the hot air balloon lands on the property, the owner of the balloon offers a bottle of Champaign to the owner. Unfortunately our backyard was not the vast and the balloons always landed outside the property line…darn!
pre-dusk skies
balloons landing in meadows
distract tomcat
mice escape their hunter
farmer Joe toasts with champagne.
Daisies have always been my favourite flower and when I was in college studying Gerontology, the professor asked us to choose an animal and a flower that best represents us and write about both with images as well. It felt like show and tell! Here I was in my mid 30’s gong back to college with two kids in school. I chose a doe and a daisy.{We’ll leave the doe aside for now.} The daisy was due to the strength of that flower that grows wild in meadows and the layers of petals, I felt, represented the multiplicity of my personality…still many underneath to discover. I believe that is a lifetime journey to continue to learn and grow. Death sometimes comes to the living if one no longer has the will of searching or learning.
I wanted to choose daisy as my nom de plume for Japanese poetry forms but I don’t like the translation of that flower in French, Marguerite. The “g” and “t” give it a harsh tone. My second choice was sunflower again for its robust nature and form. And I love the French translation, Tournesol, which is much softer… ça coule mieux {rolls off the tongue better}.
Chévrefeuille tells us more about the history of the daisy with varied legends of its meanings. Take a look below * for an enlightening and interesting read.
And now, I shall try to write a few haiku with some of these other meanings of a daisy.
thru grasslands,
wind blows while daisies waltz
children giggle
I love the sense of offering a daisy to someone, means to keep a secret. I like to imagine when a youth discloses to me for the first time, my handing him or her a delicate white daisy. This is our bond of secrecy, it is safe with me. A friend as well, who confides in me…this would be a nice gesture to seal our bond of secrecy, non?
tearful disclosures
embracing her friend
hands her a daisy
~
first time disclosure
embracing precious faith,
bids a white daisy
In conclusion, a snapshot of my thoughts in relation to a daisy and how it has enabled me to grow despite the subtle insights hidden underneath each layer.
“If you’re thinking about white daisies, there’s more to daisies than that. They can also be bright and sunny yellow, purple, pink, red, and orange. Daisies look like cartwheels with petals as spokes. In other ways, it also looks like a star that’s shining brightly.Even if daisies are a very common name for this flower, it’s also known in many other names. Names like ox eye, horse gowan, moon penny, poverty weed and dog blow all pertain to the daisy.
Daisies are not poisonous. In fact, a lot of people add daisy leaves to their bowl of fresh garden salad.
Victorian Interpretation: Daisies have many different meanings attached to them. In the Victorian age, it meant innocence, purity, and loyal love. It also means that you’ll keep someone’s secret. You’re saying that “I vow never to tell anyone” – when you give someone a daisy.
Superstitions: Based on Scottish lore, daisies were referred to as gools. For every farmer who owns a wheat field, they have an employee called the gool rider. They had the task of removing the daisies from the fields. For these farmers, if a big crop of daisies was found in your field, you had to pay a fine in the form of a castrated ram.
For the Celts, daisies were thought to be the spirits of children who died when they were born. It’s God’s way of cheering them up when He created the daisies and sprinkled them on the earth. This has a big connection to daisies symbolizing innocence.
What’s the meaning of Daisies:
Daisies are flowers that mean different things to different people. It can mean cheerfulness particularly for the yellow colored blossoms and it can mean youthful beauty and gentleness. Some people look at the daisy to be a symbol of good luck. However, the most popular meanings attached to the daisy are – loyal love, innocence and purity. It’s also a taken to convey the message – “I’ll never tell”.Apart from the Celtic legend that daisies were the spirits of children, the symbol of innocence also comes from the story about a dryad who oversaw meadows, forests and pastures. One of the nymphs, Belides danced around with her nymph sister when the god of the orchards, Vertumnus saw her. To make sure that she escapes his attentions, she turned herself into a daisy thus preserving her innocence.In terms of loyal love, daisies are used by women particularly in the Victorian age to see which suitor loves them the most. By picking on the flower’s petals, a woman would know who loves her and who does not.”
Once upon a time on l’isle des Papillons, there lived a royal family and their minions. It was a small island. The king and queen had only one son and they hoped to find a suitable princess for their Fabien. But Fabien did not like the confines of the castle. It was boring, no children to play with and now that he would soon be sixteen, he had more and more thoughts of escaping this royal prison.
He was permitted to go fishing with Jean Lessard, the cooks brother. He rarely caught anything but he learned to swim, diving into the ocean and swimming with the fish made him feel a part of nature. He got to know Jean’s son Philippe. They were the same age, same height and actually looked a lot alike…it was uncanny. Lately, Jean and Philippe Lessard were taking a longer route to the beach. They found a beautiful wild garden a few kilometres into the woods. They would stop for a few hours there and eat their packed lunch Jean’s brother had prepared for the prince. Of course there was too much for one person and the three enjoyed the royal picnic.
golden lilies tease enchanted harem, butterflies
One day Fabien was lying down on the grass admiring the daisies and wild lilies in the garden. Butterflies were resting calmly as if on cue it was their temps de sieste. Fabien had an idea…he switched clothes with Philippe and decided they would reverse their roles for one month. Fabien was hoping it would give him the opportunity to enjoy his freedom and get to know some of the other peasants on the island. Philippe was delighted to have this chance to eat all the delicacies he had never tasted but heard of from his uncle.
And so three weeks went by and Fabien was enjoying his freedom. He had even met a beautiful girl by the name of Tanya. They would spend hours at the end of their work day in the fields, in that special garden he had introduced to his new love.
One day Fabien rose early to go for a walk in his favourite garden. He tripped along the way on a gnarled root bulging on the path and fell to the ground unconscious having hit his head on a rock. He was there all day still out cold surrounded by fluttering butterflies, hopefully a princess might wake the sleeping beauty.
budding flower graced by butterfly kiss beauty rests
Tournesol dans un Jardin 
