.
iron of heaven —
Mars or Venus
round my neck
.
Egyptian hieroglyphs… refer to meteorites as the “iron of heaven.”
Meteorite from Venus: extremely rare, debatable whether any meteorites from Venus could ever find their way to a necklace…
See also http://nyti.ms/ejDgzE
This haiku was writen responding to the prompt set by Melissa Allen, NaHaiWriMo (continued into April 2011).
.
clean living–
salad leaves
and lemon juice
.
.
old cat —
fluttering in her mouth
a dragonfly
.
.
black tea no sugar
we wave without
smiling
.
.
who do you think
you are fooling, crescent moon?
even frogs grow old
.
While the NaHaiWri Mo 2011, which I thoroughly enjoy and learn from, is continuing for the month of April, I am also joining NaPoWriMo 2011. The challenge, and pledge is to write a poem a day, each single day, for the month of April.
NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project. In the words of its founder, Maureen Thorson, NaPoWriMo commenced in 2003, when she decided to take up the challenge (modeled after NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), and challenged in turn other poets to join her. Since then, she writes, the number of participants grew larger every year, and many writers, organizations, national and international, take part.
Well, phew! What a challenge, though, naturally, the daily poems are, and can only be first drafts. And, cheating a bit, I plan to use some of the haiku, senryu, and micropoems I will be writing for the NaHaiWriMo challenge; or at least versions of them.
Meanwhile, many thanks to Maureen Thorson for her brilliant idea and sustained effort. Indeed, congratulations Maureen!
For simplicity’s sake, I will be using my main blog (on which I post on various other issues) for posting. I will be giving links to other places I home my little ones in. Join me on this journey. Or better still, join the NaPoWriMo and write them yourself!
leaping leopard —
tamed now, his meow
melting hearts
.
.
.
skinny dipping —
over the lake sickle moon
and zillion stars
.
swallows –
coat and gloves
sent to the attic
“Swallows”, the haiku I wrote responding to a prompt in the Facebook NaHaiWriMo, was one of several picked to be featured for March (2011) by Vincent Hoarau in his sparkling site La Calebasse. I am both honoured and delighted – especially since he translated it into French! This is my first haiku translated into French, indeed another language, and I must say I love the sound of it. Thank you, Vincent!
Vincent’s site is well worth visiting. He generously collects and translates other poets’ work, presenting it alongside his own. His work and collection were recently commended by Melissa Allen of Red Dragonfly, a must-read blog for haiku enthusiasts.
(To find my Swallows on La Calebasse, you need to scroll down the page here to find it – towards the end. I hope you will enjoy all the haiku featured there, they are delicious.)
.
fish wife
stooped over the laptop keys
scaling words
.
( Delighted to have this poem in Cuento Magazine, #73, 30 March 2011 – writing is a bit like that, isn’t it? 🙂 )
.
breaking waves —
walking by the shore
she steps on seashells
.
.
crushed chamomile
an army tank points at
the chicken coop
.
.
all those swallows
and no calendar
in sight
.
.
earth report —
besides love, caesium
in water and in the air
.
Following the news on the BBC that “leaking water at reactor 2 has been measured at 1,000 millisieverts/hour – 10 million times higher than when the plant is operating normally.”
.
.
Adam and Eve –
smell of apple blossom
on the breeze
.
.
no prompt —
the sound of melting chocolate
without the taste
.
.
director’s chair –
granny moves it out of
the sun
.
New haiku published in Cuento Magazine today:.
harvest –
picking basil leaves
for mother‘s salad
.
London to Munich.
cherry tree blossom
deja vue
.
.
night train —
her shipboard romance
out of steam
.
.
super moon 2034
robotic arm
brushes my teeth
.
.
For the heroes risking their lives to avert meltdown in the Fukushima nuclear complex.
See article here
.
Aegean shores
meltemi brings salt
to your lips
.
.
radiation test
will frogs jump into our pond
next spring?
.
.
stepping on catfish
once again we sit
under open blooms
.
Thanks to Gabi Greve for her link on the catfish quake deity.
.
spring quake
ahead of a boat, a house
sails out to sea
.
Reflecting the horrendous destruction of the quake, this also associates to the news about a survivor picked up 9 miles out in the sea from the floating roof of his house!
.
.
white silk kimono
on the shrine floor sake
on cherry blossoms
…
The horrendous violence of nature unfolding in Japan, and its effects on people and ‘things,’ made me wonder how words could reduce it to human scale; make it somehow comprehensible to me.
Haiku 11a was an attempt to reduce/freeze the violent, fulminant images I saw on TV to a simple, quiet one: a wedding at the shrine interrupted by the tsunami, the wedding sake spilled, the silk white kimono worn at weddings on the floor…
