pomegranate
she starts losing
her baby teeth
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: evolution (sort of)
pomegranate
she starts losing
her baby teeth
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: evolution (sort of)
cracks in the snow –
sprouting from her book
the old house
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: family
breaking bread –
she gives me her sweetest
smile
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: sharing
On Tuesday the 27th of November I’m joining the Small Kindnesses Blogsplash, writing and posting about small kindnesses.
In connection with the reissue of Fiona Robyn’s eponymous novel, writers and poets are teaming up to think about the “small kindnesses” of everyday life. Are you taking part? Join me, Fiona Robyn, and many, many others around the world on November 27th to share and celebrate the small kindnesses in our lives!
Fiona says, “All you have to do is write something about being kind – a memory of someone who was kind to you, a list of kindnesses over the past week, or something kind you did for someone else. It’ll be a celebration of kindness in all its forms, especially those little kind acts that make all the difference”
Interested? join the Facebook event here
More information here
remembering
mean acts –
eyes of an owl
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: owl
icy wind –
huddling round the roasted
chestnuts stall
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: warmth
.
quill scratching a poem where it hurts
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: feather
last leaf —
she closes
her eyes
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: last leaf
.
lightning she swallows the pit in her stomach
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: children
Syntagma Square
a marble head rolls
off its plinth
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: landmark
.
For Syntagma Square see here
.
This poem alludes to G. Seferis’ lines (see below) about the ‘Greek problem’ of ‘having’ to live up to their
ancient ancestors…and not knowing how to, of course.
I woke with this marble head in my hands;
It exhausts my elbows and I don’t know where to put it down.
It was falling into the dream as I was coming out of the dream.
So our life became one and it will be very difficult for it to separate again
.
From Mythistorema, copied from wiki
The link here
crumbling stucco
an angel in gold leaf
ready to fall
1
winter grass
feeding the lost pigeons
2
winter reeds
a dove becomes
my friend
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: peace
Interesting to be reminded today that doves and pigeons,
together with the olive branch have been used as
symbols for peace, love, lust as well as the human and Holy spirit since
antiquity, and featured widely in ancient Greek
mythology, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and other religions
and cultures.
.
On another note, haiku #1 is a two-liner. I did try to twist it
into the more usual three- and one- line shapes, but
it wouldn’t listen to me.
.
whistling through deserted streets shrapnel
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: war. A difficult prompt to respond to… so many past wars, so many going on today… I opted for a single moment, the sound of flying shrapnel, the danger of it.
poacher’s moon
a crocus knows how
to wait
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: crescent (old) moon. My response to this prompt is off-key!
mistaking
angel moths for angels
misted glass…
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: insects
.
round earth
I wake up to the sound
of doves cooing
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: awakening
.
storming all night –
I get to see the other
side of the leaf
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: storm
There is now a PDF with all the small stones written on the first Mindful Writing Day
– Fiona and Kaspalita have put it together and it is available to download for free
here. There is also a blog post with a list of winners in their blog entry here.
Well deserved to the winners! And well done, everyone!
My own small stone is on page 16.
hunter’s moon
the squelch of his boot
by the creek
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: river/stream
the shadows
left by your absence —
November
Here is my own ‘smallstone’ of the day!
.
.
..
.
.
.
,
here is the now —
this smalls stone I hold
in my hand
.
.
This is the first ever Mindful Writing Day; it is organised by Kaspa & Fiona at their blog ‘Writing Our Way Home‘.
Visit them to read what the other ‘stoners’ are writing, and better still, email them your own stone!
cemetery pines
whispering among the needles
the gentlest of songs
Margaret Dornaus, poet, writer, and teacher, as well as haiku-doodler in her own words, has put together for the third year running a wonderfully moving collection celebrating the Day of the Dead, also known in Catholic circles as All Saints’ Day. It is a privilege and a treat to be included in it, as well as to read poems by several poet friends from all over the world who answered Margaret’s call.
Visit her post and read the poems. There is a tanka I particularly like, written by Margaret for Hortensia Anderson. I love the thought in it: now Hortensia is dead, Margaret can only know her through the scent of her blooms, her poems.
Happy Halloween!
.
melting chocolate on my tongue bubbling stream
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: flavor
Prompter for October 2012: Scott Abeles
This coming Thursday, the 1st of November, is the first ever Mindful Writing Day, organised by Kaspa & Fiona at their blog ‘Writing Our Way Home.’
To join-in, simply slow down, pay attention to one thing and write down a few words from this experience (thus producing what is called a ‘small stone’).
Fiona and Kaspa claim that ‘small stones’ are easy to write, and that they will help you connect to the world. Once you’ve started, you might not want to stop… I concur! You might want to polish your little ones too, expand them into a longer poem, or shrink them, prune them and polish them into a micropoem or haiku. It is up to you!
As an additional bonus, if you visit ‘Writing Our Way Home’ on Thursday you’ll find out how to download your free kindle copy of the new anthology, ‘A Blackbird Sings: a book of short poems‘. This is a lovely, richly-textured book of poetry and prose by several contributors who have been writing small stones this year. Two of my own poems are included in this book.
If you do write, you can submit your small stone and see it published on the blog, and be entered into a competition to win one of five paperback copies of the book.
I will be taking part. In fact, taking part in the Facebook community NaHaiWriMo (National Haiku Writing Month) which is on-going all through the year, I have been writing ‘smalls stones’ every day, several of them haiku, and have been posting at least one a day every day. For me to do something different on this Mindful Writing Day, may amount to not writing at all! Just joking, I couldn’t stop, if I tried!
But if, say if, you do not feel like putting pen to paper, or fingertips to laptop keys, you might visit the blog anyway, and read what the others have written; or start visiting the site of the The Haiku Foundation, in order to read one haiku a day, every day, expertly chosen for you by monthly poetry editors. You will find this feature in the Per Diem: Daily Haiku panel, at the right hand lower corner of the Foundation Homepage. For the link click here
Whatever you decide to do, don’t forget to look at the sky. It is always there…
What difference a week makes…
.
blood moon landscape painting with angels
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: stranger
.
Blood moon, or Hunter’s moon, refer to the first full moon after the Harvest moon, in October. The light of the moon was used by hunters to track and kill their prey, stockpiling food before the winter cold set in. The link between Blood moon and angels is for my reader to make…
.
..
.
.
..
harvest moon
the poet’s tea
getting cold
.
lune des moissons
le thé du poète
refroidit
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: poet
.
Transl. Vincent Hoarau – thank you, Vincent!
Vincent’s blog, La Calebasse, in French, with several poems in English, can be read here
first
heart tattoo on her arm
rest home
.
NaHaiWriMo prompt: tattoo
radio silence
I dead-head
the Busy Lizzies
.
(Busy Lizzie: flower Impatiens)
NaHaiWriMo prompt: non-verbal communication
lost in thought –
his tongue caressing the crown
on his molar
NaHaiWriMo prompt: lost
Inspired by Lee Gurga’s THF Per Diem haiku ‘professional conference’!
For a day only, today, 22 October 2012, it will be available to read on the The Haiku Foundation website, in the Per Diem: Daily Haiku panel by clicking here