Draw a Bird Day: Which Bird?

I thought I saw blue jays, but red feathers and whistles turned them into cardinals. I thought I saw cardinals, but the starlings stole their song.  I thought I saw starlings, but they grew huge and then they laughed in a raucous crow chorus.

Which bird? you ask, which
bird?—sparrows, tiny sparrows–
wings to wish upon

This is based on a fragment of a dream that came back to me with the birds in the morning.  All five birds mentioned are often both heard and seen outside my windows and doors (and, apparently, also in my dreams).

 

 

we rearrange the patterns to reflect light

ghostnames wandering
a map of endings—the sounds
of feathers and wings

For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, using synonyms for plan and finish.

Remembering the stillness of the days after 9/11, and the crystal blue sky, and the autumn leaves echoing the wind.

 

September 2018/Leaf Koan

almost dusk—color
deepens and rustles insect song–
thick light frosts the wind.

For Colleen’s 100th Tanka Tuesday celebration, she asked us to choose our own words for our poems.  I consulted the magnetic Oracle in two ways for my September leaf grid–the online one, and my refrigerator one, which is currently filled with Zen words.  Two very different views of the season.

between finding out
and insight lives the whispered
silence of why not

 

Severed Synapse

I wear myself inside out. My mask is hidden; my thoughts scriven mysteriously in code.  Sleep returns me to my origins.  I fall, resisting, afraid to let go.

I get up and it’s yesterday, dreary and inexact. Memories come together and instantly fall apart.  I am unbuttoned from the brain down.

All those rituals, the names and places, surrounding me lost and confused. No one can count them.  No one can say when or how they disappeared.

completely unfilled,
outlines stand centered between
never and not now

For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, a haibun using synonyms for sad and write. The top artwork is actually part of the stitching for a totally different project.  It’s done on iridescent plastic paper, and the scan makes it look brain-like I think.  The collage above I did awhile ago, but it also seemed to fit.

The mind is a delicate balancing act, always.

Noises

Were I Other. Were I spoken in a different voice.  Were I fallen into impossibility.

I would be like stars.
I would echo the feeling
that follows the wind.

Were I made of light. Were I pulsing like oceans.  Were I to open as wide as never and nothing.

I would radiate
rainbows. I would paint moments
with sound. Fill absence.

For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, with synonyms for love and time.  I’m not entirely sure this qualifies as a haibun.  In the spirit of, anyway.

The embroidered watercolor is a work in progress.  I plan to keep embroidering it until I stop.

Economics (Draw a Bird Day)

Biodiversity is unprofitable. Industry is profitable.

Old growth forests are unprofitable. Deforestation is profitable.  Prairies are unprofitable.  Pipelines are profitable.  Clean water and air are unprofitable.  Manufacturing, drilling, and mining are profitable.  Public lands are unprofitable.  Private property is profitable.

Healthcare is unprofitable. Illness is profitable. Truth is unprofitable. Lies are profitable.

Extinction is profitable.

dark understories,
multilayered, listening–
a silent swift swoop

The spotted owl is one of the species that will likely lose habitat if the Endangered Species Act is gutted, as those pushing development over preservation, supported by many members of Congress, and the President and his cabinet members, wish to do.  We have to find a way to live that doesn’t have greed and profit as its prime motives.  We are not just destroying the individual ecosystems that are homes for endangered species; we are killing the delicate balance that keeps everything on Earth alive.

Celebrate Draw-A-Bird Day by asking your leaders to do something to save our planet, so we can have more birds, not less, and a better and richer life for all.

Spellbound

I draw the Wheel of Fortune. My seasons are indeed turning.  I open maps, searching for a solid place to land.  Dazzled by paths that keep shifting, I am transported with a velocity that blurs the threads that have held me in the landscape my feet have raveled in the circles of my years.  The unknown spills across my limitations, beyond the boundaries traced by time.

Randomness and change
growing wings in transcendence–
radiant shadows

A haibun for Colleen’s #Poetry Challenge #92, using synonyms for bewitch and treasure.

 

Phoenix

The Phoenix is appropriate to the end of this week of constellation art and haiku.  My life is very unsettled now, and I am really having a hard time focusing, so I’m not sure how and what kind of work I’ll be doing.

But the unknown always has seeds waiting to be scattered on the wind.  Fire destroys, but opens a space for something else to fill.

You can read the words for the Phoenix constellation at Pure Haiku, here.  Thanks again Freya–this was indeed a healing process for me, much needed.

Pegasus

This one was like a dream.  Don’t we all want to fly among the stars?

You can see the words that inspired this image at Pure Haiku, here.

Corvus

Like the cry of a crow in the morning, the stars of the constellation Corvus leave plenty of space to fill in with the magic of imagination’s wings.

You can read the words to accompany this image at Pure Haiku, here.