Haiku: Rice Planting

For my prompt at Real Toads, writing poems to spring kigo.  Please keep the poems brief and with minimal description in the manner of Basho.  It is still cold here but not as bitter as a few weeks ago. Daffodils are pushing up their spears and my front yard is blue with tiny blue violets.

Haiku: Rice Planting

gentle cold spring rain –
cherry trees will soon lose their blooms –
rice is planted

Planting Rice by Hiroshige (1797 – 1858)

Harbingers

For Sarah’s prompt at dVerse: Harbingers.  During the olden days in Japan and today actually, cherry blossoms are important.  They are signs of beauty in the spring but they are also part of death.  A tree will be full of the blooms and a week later, all the blooms will have fallen to their death – cherry blossom rain.

Harbingers
“As you move through this life and this world, you change things slightly; you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life …-leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks–on your body or on your heart–are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.” Anthony Bourdain

An owl ghosting through the darkness,
A hawk sailing on the thermals.
A small cat giving birth for the first time
In the freezing rain,
My mother holding up her hand,
Reaching for her long dead mother
That only she can see.
Harbingers of death –
It comes for us all
Sure as the cherry blossoms in spring.

It doesn’t matter

For Kerry’s prompt at Real Toads. We are to write a micro poem in any form, 1 – 12 lines with the line “It doesn’t matter” from a poem by Rumi to be used in the poem. I have written a jisei – a Japanese death poem.  These were written before an anticipated death in battle or by suicide, of course they are sad; these people are getting ready to leave behind all they hold dear.  The Japanese have a saying:  Kyō wa shinu no ni yoi hidesu, just as the First People have.  They are untitled but today I am giving this a title. I have included a haiku at the end.  This is also being posted on Poets United Poetry Pantry.

It doesn’t matter
bitter winter winds –
in the garden the sleeping
cherry blossoms wait
for spring sun to awaken –
it doesn’t matter if I do not awaken

longest day ends –
it doesn’t matter says the moon –
rain begins to weep

Onnabugeisha

For Paul’s Prompt at dVerse – soul searching

Onnabugeisha
Katsumoto: The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one, and it would not be a wasted life.  The Last Samurai

Trees blooming in the spring –
cherry, pear, plum –
their blossoms last for a day and then die.
Petals drift and fall to the ground –
pink and white snow of petals.
My lover called me “*onnabugeisha”
And so I am.
I fought my way through grief
through rape, through death
and even through ovarian cancer.
I swung my katana
and cut through them all.
And the timeless prayers
to an Ancient Hebrew God
I know healed me.
I learned that I did not need to fight.
All I needed was to bloom –
To soak up the rain and sun
and gaze at the blue sky.
I should have died I know.
But my petals hung on.
I continue to gaze at the sky
and to allow my soul to bloom.

*Japanese for female samurai or warrior*

 

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March 3 – March 17

For Hedge’s 55 and Poets United

March 3 – March 17
March is the cruelest month –
I disagree with my favorite poet,
But then, he did not lose
Grandmotherfathergrandfather
in the same month of the same year –
From lugubrious third to sad seventeenth –
Funerals abounded
Funeral meals fed
Funeral flowers scented the house –
Funeral I’m sorry cards piled up
like spring snow
or dead cherry blossoms

Play It Again, Toads!

This is for the prompt over at Real Toads….Play It Again, Toads! in which several archived prompts are served up to choose from. Or you can choose the “Flash 55 Prompt which occurs the first weekend of every month…”  I chose the Flash 55 prompt.  Come stroll through the garden with the Toads at:  http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/09/play-it-again-toads.html I am also posting this on Poets United, Poetry Pantry: http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2017/09/poetry-pantry-369.html

The Samurai and the Lady
He parted the silk,
traced her skin with clusters of
pink sakura. His lips
followed their trail. He
pulled flowers from the clusters,
scattering on her skin.
Teasingly he blew
them away. Here, now there, and
there. He smiled and
pulled her to him. Soft
as petals against him, he
touched her in wonder.

Hosukai wood block print

dVerse Poets Pub: Meet the Bar with Expressionism

Bjorn is hosting the Pub today and prompting us to write poems based upon Expressionism.  Whew.  I hope this one comes close.  Come join us at:  Meet the Bar with Expressionism

Cuts like a Knife
The sky is so blue overhead
And the clouds so white.
Yet the wind cuts through you like…
a hot knife through warm butter
scissors through paper
a katana through silk…

And you. You.
You go through me like a
hot knife through cream cheese or…
like a katana through that thin branch
On my cherry tree –
you slash and slice and
and the blossoms fall
to the ground.
the birds peck now among them
finding the worms that burrow
underneath.

a lone crow circles overhead
in that blue winter sky.
he cuts through the sky
like a katana slices through fog.

still from Last Samurai

Tanka: Yaekumo

The tanka refers to clouds called by the Japanese – yaekumo – eight fold clouds or, double blooming cherry trees.

many layered clouds –
double blooming cherry tree –
cherry blossoms are
missed but always there are trees
blooming in the summer sky

Open Link Night #170 – Hazasakura

This is posted for Open Link Night at dVerse.  Come visit to read a variety of poems by some talented writers!

public domain image

Hazasakura*

so long we wait for the blooms –
through the long winter watching the
tiny bits of reddish brown bud grow larger –
through snow, dark days, moonless nights
the buds grow larger and one day
they burst into bloom.
Too brief their time of beauty.
By the end of the day blossoms fade
and blow away in the wind or drift
to the ground in sakura snow.
A hard rain this morning.
Petals washed down and ground into the mud
by the relentless raindrop armies
churned into oblivion.
A walk down the lane to the creek this afternoon –
fresh smell of pine needles and cedar
from the surrounding woods –
the usually clear water muddy from the rain.
I try to see my image but only see shadowy
reflections from the trees.
I return home already missing the cherry blossoms.
I stuff my hands in my pockets
having to accept the truth of cherry blossoms:
the blossoms have to die so the green leaves can live.
It’s a long wait until next Hanami.

*hazasakura – term for green cherry trees after the blossoms have fallen.

Haibun Monday #10 Cherry Blossoms

Monday, over at dVerse Poet’s Pub, I am behind the Bar pouring out the prompt.  Cherry blossom time is a special time in Japan.  Hanami, or cherry blossom viewing, is all about family, fesitival, food, fun…from dawn to dawn, people will be out and about admiring the cherry blossoms.  At night, the trees will be strung with lights so they can be viewed at night as well as providing light for dancing, drinking…lovers!  I am using several cherry blossom haiku by Issa and Basho for the prompt.  Writers are to choose one of the haiku to begin their haibun and then end their haibun with their own nature/cherry blossom based haiku.  Come on over and read and view all the cherry blossoms provided by the various talented poets.  Bar opens at 3:00 pm EST.  Join us here all week:  http://dversepoets.com/2016/03/28/haibun-monday-hanami/

copyright kanzensakura

“How many many things
they call to mind –
these cherry blossoms” Basho

As is my annual habit, I checked the cherry blossom blooming forecast for Japan.  This year, they are blooming early – both in Japan and here in the United States.  Sakura Matsuri (cherry blossom festival) is always a bittersweet time for me.  Many memories tied to cherry blossoms:  dancing at night beneath lighted trees, hearing the laughter of other dancers and lovers, wandering beneath their beauty during the day – my breath taken away by their beauty, sakura ice cream, stealing kisses in the midst of a cherry blossom snow, the first blooming of sakura after he went away, standing in the rain and seeing the petals driven into the earth around the trees – like tiny headstones for the graves of tears.

I still feel some of that sadness but remember when I began again to feel anticipation of and joy in their blooming.  The sadness is the mono no aware felt during this season for their quickly passing beauty – deep pink blooms against an azure sky or pure white blooms like earthbound clouds.  Yesterday I strolled under the cherry trees and smiled at lovers and danced to music of Japanese style bands, introduced my husband to a typical hanami picnic lunch.  His eyes as blue as the sky took in all the sights, sounds, and smells of his first sakura matsuri.  Joy and peace at being again in love with the cherry blossoms in spite of their beautiful brevity.  Hand holding and stealing kisses under the cherry trees seems to be eternal as Fuji – it is comforting to know some things do not change with time.  And that which was thought lost is found again.

cherry blossoms dance
in spring breeze – song of birds
like temple bells.

copyright kanzensakura

 

d’Verse Poetics – Complicated Heart: haibun

Tuesday at d’Verse Poetics, Anthony is our pub tender. He has gifted us with eight original lines of poetry. He wants us to write a poem using three lines of our choice from the eight Please come visit us, read the original, amazing lines from this talented young man, read the poems linked and….link one of your own! Mr. Linky is good for 33 hours so you have plenty of time to submit one of your poems. The lines I have used are bolded and italicized. My submission for this is a haibun. October 5 is another special Haibun Monday!& If you enjoy writing this form or are curious about it, come visit us then as well. Hamish Gunn will the guest host along with our fearless leader and poet extraordinaire – Bjorn.

Complicated Heart
Sakura Matsuri –under the cherry trees I wandered alone. The petals of pink and white blew in the fitful breeze or caught in the grass. I looked at the patterns they made, there beneath the trees and craved images of you. The tree limbs, danced with grace against the blue sky. My heart wept remembering the fluidity of your presence.

Hanami in Hakone was almost past. In memory I saw the petals falling on your black hair, saw your elegant hands catching the petals in the wind and holding them to my lips to lightly kiss before you again scattered them to the wind. A lost love found in you awakened my heart. Years passed. Japan called you home. I should have gone with you. You should have stayed. The heart makes the simplest things so damn complicated.

cherry blossom rain –
pink and white petals – flower
tears – blue sky dims.

copyright kanzensakura

 

d’Verse Poetics: Change #2 tanka

Another tanka for d’Verse Poetics on the prompt of Change.

 

pink cherry blossoms
from tiny buds now green leaves
form a canopy –
green leaves fluttering soon to
be withered leaves on my lawn.