The Wind is Eavesdropping

for Kim’s prompt at dVerse Poets Pub https://dversepoets.com/2020/09/07/quadrille-111-whats-that-rustling-in-the-eaves/.  We are to write a quadrille today – a poem of exactly 44 words, excluding the title and using the word given for the day – eavesdropping.  It jas been a long while since I have visited my old friends at dVerse as I have been grieving the death of my husband.  I have been writiing but not positing.  Today, this word was a sign – I have been working on a short poem with the word in it.  Hello fellow poets!  It is good to visit again.

The Wind is Eavesdropping
“The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.” George R.R. Martin

The wind is eavesdropping on the trees
and the woodland creatures.
It listens as the squirrels
skitter and scamper
and prepare for fall.
Cold this twilight with
Venus burning bright.
The sun explodes in a pre-autumn
blue sky as the geese fly quickly southward.

 

 

Lost Leaves

For Poets United Midweek Motif – Longing. An American Sentence. Also for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.

Lost Leaves
“To ask why we fall in love is to ask why the leaves fall.” ― Jimvirle/Jinvirle

Autumn deepens; faded leaves swirl in the cold wind searching for their tree.

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

The River

For Sherry’s Prompt at Real Toads, Wonder. I know few things more wonderful than trees and then it is trees beneath autumn skies. And the wonder of it all, they are free to us all.  An American Sentence.

The River
“The river is everywhere.” – ― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

Color changing trees stretch beneath autumn blue sky – an endless river.

Autumn II

An American Sentence.

Autumn II
“Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.” ― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

The first cool day of autumn, I sat and watched the clouds in the blue sky.

 

copyright kanzensakura

Autumn I

a gogyohka. An untitled Japanese form of five lines. There is no syllable count per line but each line must be a short stand alone phrase. The lines can be between one word or more, but the phrase is brief. It was invented by Enta Kusakabe in Japan and translates literally to “five-line poem.” An off-shoot of the tanka form, the gogyohka has very simple rules: The poem is comprised of five lines with one phrase per line. That’s it.

“Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.”― John Howard Bryant

new born autumn
leaves still green
autumn blue sky overhead
grass is fading
hot weather still hovers

Almost Autumn

For Poets United, Poetry Pantry. The birds are vanishing from the skies.

Almost Autumn
“Birds were created to record everything. They were not designed just to be beautiful jewels in the sky, but to serve as the eyes of heaven.” ― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

For the first time since April
the morning was cool.
The autumnal equinox swings through the heavens.
Wind rustles through the dried leaves
on the cornstalks,
crickets sing their tenor songs,
the bees sleepily droning.
But,
where was the sound of birds?
Had they all slipped into the southward migration?
Mast is heavy in the woods –
gonna be a hard winter.
But,
no sound of cardinals or sparrows,
no twitting of finches.
I listened, hearing only the sound
of the blood in my body,
the beating of my heart.
But,
no birds.
Where have the birds gone?

Apple Air

An American sentence for Sarah’s prompt at dVerse – waiting and anticipiation.  An American sentence is exactly 17 syllables and is a complete sentence. It was created by Allen Ginsberg because he couldn’t follow the rules for classic haiku.

Apple Air
“Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first September was crisp and golden as an apple.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Waiting for the lovely tokens of autumn and the rich smell of apples.

 

 

Autumn is Coming

For Mish’s prompt at dVerse, using the art of Beverly Dyer.

Zen Tree by Beverly Dyer

Autumn is Coming
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”- George Eliot

in the midst of the forest,
autumn is coming.
vines are already golden
and trees are just starting to flaunt
that one red leaf.
up in the pine tree
the owl sits observing it all.
he watches the squirrels and chipmunks
scurrying about putting away
acorns and hickory nuts.
autumn is coming,
he hoots.
and lifting his wings he glides
over all, observing..

 

Owl by Beverly Dyer

Waning Moon

For Kerry’s prompt on Toads: a poem by Rupi Kaur, using the reference: ‘fill the empty parts… We are to write a micro-poem of 10 lines or fewer.  This is also posted for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub.

Waning Moon
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”- George Eliot

the moon is at one percent illumination today –
darkness is almost total – am owl glides invisible through the night.
summer is winding down and in the cornfields the stalks’
drying leaves rustle in the wind –
I wait for autumn to fill me with apples
and frost, with clear blue skies
and the last tomatoes from the vine.
tiny sweet smelling blackeyed susans
and the burrowing cicadas fill me with music.
I want to be filled with autumn again.

Autumn Contemplation

Autumn Contemplation
“The upper reaches here and the lower of the river – the friend for the moon.” Matsuo Basho

Meigetsu,
the harvest moon is fading –
Bright gold coin in black sky
now dims and wanes to a partial dish of cream.
Hatsu arashi – the first storm of autumn
has washed clean the sky.
aki simu – autumn is clearing,
brilliant blue,
luminous white clouds drifting, silent. peaceful.
Autumn’s voice whispers –
breeze across dry leaves on the grass,
wind in the reeds at the creek,
The little priest – the tiny cicada delicately
moves his wings, a small voice
among the raucous pine and bell crickets,
an alto to the larger cicadas
and their metallic thrum.
Shinryoo – new coolness in the air.
The coming of autumn is somnolent today.
No rise or fall,
A steady tone of almost silence.
The morning glory twines
lovingly around my plum tree
and shows her blue face,
echoing her sister,
aki no sora – the autumn sky.
The small grey tabby across the way
sits beneath an oak
watching the occasional
slow falling leaf.
Her eyes stay upward
and she does not move for she wants to see
the leaves as they float and fall around her.
An early leaf burning –
smoke wanders and its incense drifts to heaven.
my wondering heart sit entranced
in the midst of the haiku
I wish I could write.

Haibun: The Last Holdout

For Imelda (guest prompting at dVerse) prompt of waiting at dVerse Haibun Monday. A haibun is a short prosimetric Japanese form. I am following my new style of writing haibun in the abbreviated style of the original haibun created by Basho, 44 – 100 words. Remember: A haibun is an accounting of a true incident that happened to you. It is not poetry separated by “haiku”. the haiku must be seasonal and nature related to be a haiku.  A haibun is also not flash fiction. This will also be posted on Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Haibun: The Last Holdout
Almost the end of November. The weather varies between warm and cold, dry and wet. Some leaves still cling to the trees waiting for the word from Nature to let go and fall, drifting slowly to the earth. Every day I walk by and count fewer leaves than the day before.
the black oak
still warming the cold sky –
last to lose its leaves

copyright kanzensakura

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