In anticipation of Valentine’s Day 2019 (for my daughters)

To answer with love–
fragments pieced together like
a mystery solved

Colleen’s prompt this week was to write a love poem.  There are some wonderful poets of love here on WordPress (you know who you are) but that is definitely outside my comfort zone.  Still, I will certainly be sending some Valentines, and so I wrote a poem for the intended recipients.

As Colleen has introduced haiga as a form for her #Tanka Tuesday, I decided to integrate my words and art this week as well.

Also linked to dVerse OpenLinkNight.

 

Year of the Earth Pig 2019

 

What counts as riches?
money garnered from the labors
of others?  A wall?

The breath of wings, air, trees, this
rhythmic ebb and flow, these tides

I couldn’t really get a feel for the Year of the Pig, except that it comes with the idea of wealth, which can be negative (greed) or positive (hard work).  But I think we perhaps need to begin with a different idea of wealth.

February 2019

heavy snow
shoveling away
the solitude
–Rachel Sutcliffe

one set of boot tracks
grey clouds mingle with absence
paths left untrodden

For a long time I started each month with a collage grid and a haiku.  This month, having done a grey February mandala (perhaps next month a grid), I decided to take up Frank Tassone’s challenge to honor poet Rachel Sutcliffe by writing haiku inspired by her words.

his death day
in graveyard shadows
gathered crows
–Rachel Sutcliffe

winter multiplies
voices now lost to the wind
crows calling grey skies

Hopefully the grey will clear out before February’s end…

 

 

 

amidst a fierce and wandering tempest

I was thinking about winter, and considering both Colleen’s prompt words, cold and storm, and Sue Vincent’s photo prompt below.  The Oracle definitely surprised (and delighted) me with the final line.

ancient roots murmur
beneath frosted clouds of trees–
wind bursts into song

 

The Silence of Bones

I want to once again thank Freya Pickard for featuring one of my haiku as part of the Portal Series on Pure Haiku.  You can read it here.

I will be taking a few weeks off from posting to deal with ongoing family medical issues, but I will try to check in with WordPress every once in awhile to see what’s going on.  And Nina will still be posting her work every few days, so we won’t be totally absent.

Shapeshifting Moonlight

My haiku “Shapeshifting Moonlight” is posted today as part of Pure Haiku’s Portal Series.  You can read it here, along with all the other wonderful portals in verse.  Thanks as always to Freya Pickard for including my words on Pure Haiku.

 Joyce Fienberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, 59 and 54
Bernice and Sylvan Simon, 84 and 86
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69

 

Remembering those who lost their lives in the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday. May they rest always in a portal of light.

reflecting into themselves

reassembled air–
details gathered and released
into shimmering

trembling suspended,
the light falls into silence–
neither night nor day

throwing the questions
into vast infinity–
what the night reveals

This haiku sequence was inspired by Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, above.

The night sky is full of questions…

 

Comment-a-Haiku Poetry Contest: Hearkening

The moon sailing free–
hare pauses in the forest,
listening for light

Vita Brevis is once again sponsoring a haiku meet-and-greet.  You can post your own haiku here, and then read all the other ones that have been submitted too.

As I stated in my entry, this haiku was inspired by Jane Dougherty and her many hare poems, like this one or this one.  And of course the moon.

 

Scarecrow Joins the Circle Dance

Autumn. I fall into disrepair.  The sky still covers me, but my shadow dissolves into the remains of the golden ocean that heretofore eddied and flowed at my feet.  My skin lies ragged, unfilled.

I was crowned, once, with dark discordant ornaments. They sit on other thrones now, unrepentant pretenders, still calling the sun, the wind–the land itself–to task.

A crow flies over
a graveyard—blackness on stone–
change hangs in the air

When I saw Frank Tassone’s Haikai Challenge about scarecrows, I was intrigued.  I can’t think of Scarecrow without  thinking of Robert Okaji’s wise sage.  So whatever I did would be colored by what Robert has written.  I also decided to use the words from Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, synonyms for ghost and hollow, as many of them seemed to fit on Scarecrow too.

As to Crow–he’s always around here somewhere.

Once again, different light makes the metallic paint change like the weather and the seasons…and this is another artwork inspired by Joan Mitchell being inspired by Van Gogh.  Circles within circles.

Also linked to dVerse Open Link Night.

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).