River of Heaven

Posted for Mid-Week Motif at Poet’s United – Midweek Motif, prompt:  River.  Excellent prompts are gifted each week here.  http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2015/11/poets-united-midweek-motif-river.html  Also posted for d’Verse Poets Open Link Night.  Open Link Night is where we get to post a new poem in any style/form/subject we choose.  Always an interesting array of poems submitted.  Come and check out both websites for excellent reading and hopefully, to submit one of your own poems!  Both are friendly and supportive communities – no snobs!!!!  Huge grin.  Try it, you might like it.  I am submitting a haiku this week.  The word amanogawa is the Japanese word for the Milky Way and means:  river of heaven or, celestial river.  It is one of the  seasonal words for autumn.  Traditional Haiku reflect the changing seasons and have kigo – seasonal word in the first line reflecting the when of the haiku.  This explanation is longer than the poem!!!

amanogawa
shines in the darkness – light flows
around star islands.

free public domain image

 

100 Word Challenge 09/21/14 – Amanogawa

Slowly I walked to the river, night sounds surrounding me:  crickets, cicadas, the solemn conversation of a family of owls.

The array of stars dazzled in the black sky – a basket of glittering diamonds cast extravagantly on velvet.  I stood, entranced by the amanogawa, the Milky Way, river of the heavens, and the stars reflected on the surface of the river.

As the waves gently lapped at my feet, I looked to the river in the heavens, then to the river on the earth.  I sailed away on the river of earth to the amanogawa, without a backward glance.