The Daffodils on the Edge of the Woods

For Posery at dVerse and Earthweal: Finding Hope

Haibun: The Daffodils on the Edge of the Woods
“She turned to the sunlight And shook her yellow head, And whispered to her neighbor: “Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young

We bought our house and moved in in October. We planted daffodils all around the house. In the spring they burst into bloom and trumpeted spring. I noticed across the road, a bunch of wild daffodils, growing on their own. They splayed their greenness, displayed their golden heads among the dead leaves and bare trees. They became my favorite clump of daffodils and I looked forward to them every year. This year, they are growing, blooming. I saw them as I drove past on the narrow road by our house. I stopped and admired them. I began to cry to as I looked at them – the clump of a half-dozen blooms. I looked up at the spring blue sky with mackerel clouds. As much as I missed Brad, there was hope there. The sky would be blue, the daffodils would bloom, the birds would sing in the trees. There are moments caught between heart-beats, between tears and smiles. I wiped my eyes and bent down and kissed the blooms. Hope, I whispered. Hope.
trumpets of gold
proclaim spring –
proclaim life

Haibun: Kitten Photos

For Shay’s photo prompt on Sunday Muse BlogSpot. The haibun ends with a senryu and not the typical seasonal haiku.

Kitten Photos
“Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.” – Diane Arbus

Decades ago, I was a photographer. Not a taker of pretty of pictures but a paid-for-photographs-by-a-Philadelphia-newspaper. I also took autopsy photos for extra money. The photos I took were a queasy combination of the dead and food styling. Sometimes the paper would use me as a stringer and I would travel to a small town to take pics of mourners at a funeral, an exceptionally bad car wreck, or the local gardening club. Most of the time I hated my job but it paid the rent. Like most young underpaid photographers, I ate a lot of hotdogs at the Pen and Pencil – the local press club. The hotdogs swam in hot water in a slow cooker and were free. The scotch you had to pay for. I used to drink a week’s salary in scotch during this time. This temporary career choice of three years built up in me a hatred of having my picture taken and taking snapshots. People ask, why don’t you take pics of your garden or your food? Well, read what I did to pay the rent. On our 20th anniversary, my husband and I glared at the waitress who was taking our picture as we sat and waited for our dinner.

Like being a chef, being a photographer involves smoke and mirrors. Careful and precise knife work and the right ingredients. My favorite photographers were Henri Bresson and Alfred Stieglitz. They would have made great chefs I think. But I was young, a mere kitten. I learned to combine smoke and mirrors and precise knife work when I cooked. I never really caught on when I did photography. You can only put so much finesse into an autopsy photo after all. I regret the photography phase of my life – especially the phase of intruding in people’s lives. Hold still. Let me take your picture while you sit on the commode or weep for your dead mother (who was vaguely famous) or lie naked on a table waiting for the knife.
photographs
in black and white –
life doesn’t hold still

Bulbs and Bees

A haibun on the subject of spring for dVerse Poets Pub haibun Monday.  I prefer the haibun in the manner of Basho rather than the long descriptive westernized haibun.  This is also linked to Earthweal whose subject is renewal.

 

Bulbs and Bees
“To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.” William Wordsworth

Bulbs and Bees
When we moved into this house, my husband and I planted a few hundred daffodil bulbs to naturalize among the trees and boundary lines. Every year, they come up among the fallen dead leaves, pushing them out of the way. Then they begin to bloom – such sweetness of fragrance that lifts my heart. The bees come awake about this time of year. I press my stethoscope against the hive listening to them buzz. I must confess to stroking the green fronds of the daffodil and weeping as I remember Brad and I planting the bulbs so happily that first autumn we lived in our home. Such joy we shared with each other and with the creatures of the woods and of course, my bees. Every year the daffodils return bringing spring on its heels.
gazing at the blue skies
the colour of his eyes –
I smile at the clouds

 

 

Keeping Calm

For Sherry’s Prompt at Real Toads, keeping calm during the crisis of climate change.

Haibun: Keeping Calm
“The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people you left behind want to stop living.” ― Fredrik Backman, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry

Uh oh. Another one of Toni’s let’s get real and honest posts. With topics such as Trump, BREXIT, climate change – I find it hard to take any of it seriously. My husband died Sunday, suddenly, after a brief illness. I find it hard to keep calm in the face of a personal crisis. I don’t really care about a global crisis at this point. The love of my life died Sunday – a tall tree in a forest of fakes cut down in his prime. During his brief illness, I discovered again that the only thing that lasts forever is love. True honest unpretentious real love. One day I will care about the climate again. One day. Maybe it will be too late by the time I care again. Until then, I will wander through this empty house, stare at the Ursids by myself, look at the bare trees by myself. Love. That is it. The end-all and be-all. Love.
a tree cut down in its prime –
my heart grieves
my heart weeps

Haibun: Autumn Leaves III

Haibun: Autumn Leaves III
“Autumn’s the mellow time.” William Allingham

The dead leaves drift in faded tatters. I can see their spirits rising in the rain. The green leaves are now gone. Leaves float in the river of goodbye.
trees wave in the wind
saying goodbye to their leaves
half past autumn has arrived

In Plain Sight

For the Meeting the Bar segment of Dverse Poets Pub. Bjorn gives the prompt today to write from a different perspective.

In Plain Sight
“When composing a verse let there not be a hair’s breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.” ― Bashō

well folks, here she is:
a woman who loves the ocean
and howls at the moon.
she observes the passing of the seasons
in the Japanese manner
and makes her own udon.
She has studied extensively Bartitsu
and is an expert at la canne.
She believes in brevity in poetry.
She hides in plain sight.

autumn moon –
the night is gone –
a crow awakens

Haibun: I am Lone Wolf

For Sherry’s Prompt on Real Toads “Answer the wolf’s call with your poems about wildness and wolves, domesticity and mothers, daughters and sons, or your own fierce love for your child. Allow the passage quoted to take you where it pleases. Bring us back whatever you find.” And for the Midweek Motif on Poets United: Authenticity

Haibun: I am Lone Wolf
“The wolves knew when it was time to stop looking for what they’d lost, to focus instead on what was yet to come.”
― Jodi Picoult, Lone Wolf

Most of the time, I prefer to be alone; not part of the crowd. I prefer to wander in the forest and sniff the smells there, feel the heat/cold/rain/snow on my back. I prefer an honesty in my words and actions. If something is shite (IMHO) I prefer to say so and not shilly-shally with polite words. This has gotten me into trouble in the past and so, I prefer to be alone, with my honesty. I am a lone wolf. I only kill to eat, to leave behind forage for the pack roaming behind me. I prefer feeding rather than being fed. I can feed myself. Sometimes I am shot at, sometimes I am smiled at, most of the time I am left alone. I prefer honesty, or authenticity if you will. I don’t put down pretty words and prefer actually, that you be authentic with me. Let’s smell each other’s butts and see where the other has been, what the other has eaten. Sometimes I put my head back and howl at the moon, even when it is hidden by clouds.
fall comes like a storm –
it can be smelled on the wind –
inhale it deeply

Haibun: The Watch

Haibun: The Watch
“Those we love never truly leave us, Harry. There are things that death cannot touch.” – Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two

An early leaf burning: smoke wanders and its incense drifts to heaven. The voices of cicadas are silent now in the stand of cedars on the hill. I go to the pile of stones gathered from daily walks down to the creek and back. I bring one back and place it carefully on the pile. I began years ago with the death of friend, and then the death of my mother and the three suicides of friends last July and the death of my cousin Billy last October. I also place a candle in a gallon jar, that will burn though the night. The night will be cloudy, the stars unseen. But that doesn’t mean the stars aren’t there, just hidden from view. Like the loved ones gone before. I will sit on my back porch and watch the candle through the night, keeping watch, drifting in and out of sleep, of dreams. I sit entranced in the midst of the haiku I wish I could write.
the silent cedars
on the hill bear witness
to unseen stars

 

The Scarecrow

De hosts Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets. We are to use the word “quiver” or a form of the word, in the body of a quadrille. Quadrille: a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title. I have done a combination of gogyohka and haiku. A quadrille is a poem, in any form, of exactly 44 words sans title using the given word by the prompter. A gogyohka is a five line Japanese form of poetry; it is five lines long. The only rule is that each line must be a phrase.

 

The Scarecrow
“We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity.” –  Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus

endless rows of dried cornstalks whisper
in the chill autumn wind –
a hunt lost beagle quivers as
I bend down to pet it.
It wags its tail as it follows me home.

a scarecrow almost
shredded – flaps its arms in the wind –
waving goodbye

Indgenous Southern Woman

For Haibun Monday at dVerse. Frank Tassone is the prompter. He wishes us to write about indigenous – “What does Indigenous mean to you? Is it your culture? Is there a time and place that speaks to you about the Indigenous? Or is there an experience of time and place that marks it as your own indigenous moment?”

Indigenous Southern Woman
“The truth is nobody can own anything. That was an unheard-of concept among indigenous people. We invented that.”  Tom Shadyac

A few years ago, I did one of those DNA test thingies. The results did not surprise me. Being a physical anthropology major, I knew of course, physical characteristics of Native Americans, particularly those from the Southern East Coast. My little fingers are crooked. I already had the making of a chef’s hands before I started. Another physical characteristic is hidden behind the teeth, a ledge that gives the teeth a shovel appearance. An inverted breastbone is also common, a trait that leaves an indentation in the chest; it is sometimes called a “chicken breast.” All of their unique characteristics are due to genetic mutations that have been passed down through the tribe over thousands of years. Modern DNA analysis has allowed these traits to be traced and tracked and can help to identify those with Cherokee or other Native American blood.

It was discovered that I am 28% Native American including the tribes of the NC Coast: Lumbee, Sappony, Meherrin Occaneechi, Waccamaw tribes. I am also descended from very early English Settlers. They were part of the pirate contingent who raided the coast and pillaged and some of them settled here, on the NC coast, in about 1640. In fact, some of the folks on the barrier islands speak with old English accents and use their words. My family has always been watermen and farmers – and pirates. That is where I get my love of the land, the seasons, the trees from. The rest of the DNA test revealed mostly English, specifically the east coast of England. I follow the seasons, respect the earth, and try to walk gently upon it. I was taught this by my family.  We all in our family believe in the lessons the earth has to teach us.
southern woman
born of tribes and pirates
lover of the seasons

 

Haibun: Everyday Life

For Poets United Mid-week Motif – everyday life

Haibun: Everyday Life
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everyday is a day of peace. Before I retired four years ago, I grasped at the beauty on weekends like a drowning person grasped at a lifesaver, like a dying person grasps for the last look at a beloved face. I hungrily snapped up the vision of leaves, the feel of rain, the silken scarf of moonlight, the smell of French toast for breakfast. I binge cooked on the weekends making meals to feed us during the week, smells of bread and red sauce, pot roast and fried chicken, quick breads and cinnamon and ginger and onions wafting through the house. Now I walk daily – in the rain, the snow, the blistering hot sun. I visit my friend the Oak every other day and sometimes take my violin and sit in its upper branches sawing away for the birds and squirrels. Peace. A commodity more important than money to me. The quotidian details are there but now they are happily supplemented with all I had starved for before.
the autumn cool
says blessed and happy –
and the name of peace

Haibun: Hunter’s Moon

For Merrill’s Prompt at dVerse Poets Pub – a quadrille.  A quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words using the prompter’s choice of words.  Today the word is “set”.

Haibun: Hunter’s Moon
“Always remember we are under the same sky, looking at the same moon.” —Maxine Lee

The sun has set and the air is cool. I watch the moon rise. It is a full hunter moon. An owl drifts overhead and I feel its passing in the air.
the moon is so bright
I can see like
a spotlight shines

Hunters Moon