seasons

oceanic bells
remnants of autumn bending
landscapes into dreams

beneath winter’s frost
ancient stonesongs murmur
through rootpaths
following earthlight
from seed to spring

haiku and gogyohka from the Oracle

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

 

Autumn (after Joan Mitchell)

I am startled by silence
appearing suddenly, grey, tangled, dense–
all color has fallen away,
hanging by whispers to sharp edges and desolation.

I reach for wind–
carry me to fields where sun
returns blue to sky,
calls trees to green.

The NaPoWriMo prompt for Day 18 was to take lines from a poem (backwards, from last to first) and write a response to each line to make your own poem.  Since I have been using the art of Joan Mitchell as inspiration this month, I was pleased to find that she had published a poem, “Autumn”, in Poetry Magazine.  You can read it here.

 

November 2017

In this chill
remembering the past–
breath catching
what is gone–
exhaling hard, inhaling
portents and promise

Late with my grid this month too…but then autumn took it’s time to arrive as well.  They are promising the first freeze of the season tonight.

And another shadorma for Shadorma November.

Nina is still betwixt and between with her job–as we all know, nothing gets done in a timely way these days.  But she will return soon, I promise!

 

October 2017: Tidings

quiet shapes hover,
silent shadows cast by youth–
spirits in mirrors

befriend the stage unfolding–
fill the mind’s eye with delight

October’s grid is composed of cut up pieces of two different monoprints.  The tanka uses words from Colleen’s Poetry Challenge and the Secret Keeper–both were thinking of spirits (appropriate to the month of October).

I’ve been considering the accumulations of autumns in a life.

My particular thoughts for this unfolding day are for those all over the world struggling to cope with daily survival in the wake of disasters both natural and man-made.  May we learn to respond with open hearts and hands.

Autumn Song

Leaves singing the wind–
harmony of sad embrace–
I watch as clouds sigh.

Take this mood and rearrange
the patterns to reflect light.

For Colleen’s poetry challenge, also using the Secret Keeper’s words this week.

With another monoprint.

 

November

 

…is almost gone, and for the past 5 weeks I’ve been taking a photo each day out my office window.  It would have been better I suppose if I had managed to get exactly the same angle and taken it the same time each day, but it still gives a pretty good idea of the process of autumn this year on my little block in NYC.

December next week and 2016 on the horizon…yikes!

Jack in a Leaf Pile

His little blonde head sticking out of a pile of oak leaves; I just had to draw him. Lots of raking going on here and the kids are enjoying it. 

Autumn in New York (2015)

Central Park and the High Line…last week was one beautiful day after another.

This Path (November 2015)

no escaping it–
I must step on fallen leaves
to take this path.

–Suzuki Masajo

I’m back kind of sort of.  Will take some time to catch up…