Wordless Wednesday

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Sunday Serenity

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Sunny Sunday Serenity

Copyright kanzensakura

i miss the snow on my page

Christmas decorations taken down,
Back in their boxes
for another year.
dark winter envelops,
at night, only lights from
stalled traffic and fast food
joints add artificial festivities.
Houses plain again,
yellow light from windows
– no more candles in windows
or twinkles from
Christmas trees beckon
a welcome.
Stale cookies dumped
into the trash or
flung out into the yard
for birds and squirrels.
I look out and sigh.
sunny day, clear blue sky.
The limbo between brown lawns
and blooming plum trees
stretches like an endless
road in the desert
diasappearing into
a bleak horizon.
and even on my website
the holiday snow has
stopped blowing
across the page –
that bit of whimsy
just….gone.
I want the power
to stop or start the snow again.
I want the light again.
I want the darkness
to turn into dawn.

Sepia Sunday – Two haiku

I.
winter day: silent
birds pecking seeds beneath bare
forsythia bush.

II.
Oddly warm winter
day. sepia drizzle tints
silent yard and sky.

Wordless Wednesday: Floating leaves

copyright kanzen sakura

Thoughtful Thursday: You Hold the Key to Love and Fear

Oddly enough, the latest commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken brought to mind one of the songs that defined an age, a place, an event, a dream for love and peace:  The Youngbloods – Get Together.

I was one of those at Woodstock and heaven help me, I do not remember much.  My Cousin Billy and I were doing fine until the announcement blared out:  “…That the brown acid that is circulating around us isn’t too good. It is suggested that you stay away from that. Of course it’s your own trip. So be my guest, but please be advised that there is a warning on that one, ok?”

I haven’t a clue if it was bad, I just know at one point, my consciousness merged with lots of other people and it was….epic.  Years later, years older, years wiser, I look back at that time in my life as endless sunshine and beauty.  Of course, most of the time it was pharmaceutically enhanced but….deep in my heart, that song has stayed with me through the years.  It has defined me.  I have shared the song with those I love either by recording or my poor little voice singing along while I play the tune on the violin.  I must add, the drugs are long gone but the love still remains.

I took my husband with me to the 40th anniversary.  He watched clips, gazed at photos, talked to folk like me.  He is 10 years younger than me and was not old enough to be affected.  In fact, he could have been one of the many children there with their parents!

In 1984, an ex-lover and I had gone camping to an almost deserted place on the shore of a huge, beautiful lake.  The first morning, I awoke an hour or so before him.  I walked out of tent and dissolved into the perfect and beautiful silence.  The lake was mirror smooth.  I went to the car and brought out the case with my violin, went down to the shore and sat down.  At first, soft random melodies and then, it all came flooding back to me.  I began to play this song.  I gazed at the birds and clouds in the sky, listened to the waves softly lapping the shore.  My lover came and sat beside me.  “What is that song?”  I began to sing the words and played softly.  When I was through, I looked at him and his cheeks were wet with tears.  We sat in silence and then he said, “Please, again. I remember this song when I was in university in Tokyo.  But it means more now.”

It means more to me now.  With all the hate, war, indifference, it opens my heart anew to loving one another; to doing those small acts of kindness that only another person is aware of, to do something to help another person.  I don’t know who said this, but there is a quote:  “No matter how small, no act of kindness is ever wasted.”   You hold the key to love and fear in your trembling hand.

Wordless Wednesday: Fried Chicken in 90 year old iron skillet

copyright Kanzensakura

Wordless Wednesday: Same photo, different styles

 

copyright kanzensakura

copyright kanzensakura

SamCat sez: International Smile Day

I’m looking for SMILES today!!!!!!   I hope you find ways to make others smile.  I’m going to try my best.    🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Blogger: SamCat – Sakura’s back home!

Good morning Every one – two legs, four legs, how ever many legs.  My most favorite upright, Sakura, is back home again after a too long absence.

The male upright took care of me while she was gone.  He’s okay but he isn’t…he’s….I’m trying to be kind here but he just isn’t cat material.  I mean, he is acceptable as a shredding post but that is about it.

I’d tell him I was hungry and he would say, SamCat, there is food in your bowl.  And yes, there was that wonderful new food my Sakura got for me:  no grains, no artificial flavors, colors, bye products (not sure what that is, is it products who are always leaving?). She told me it was full of salmon, Alaskan whitefish, sweet potatoes, greens….yummy.  And my tummy feels better and I don’t itch the way I used to itch.  But that was all he would do.  He kept my food and water bowls full, he cleaned my private loo.  He didn’t play with me or pet me or let me sleep in his lap.  He ….. he prefers… dogs.

When I tell my upright Sakura I am hungry, she walks over and checks my dish and then leans down to pick me up and scratch me head.  SamCat, you have a whole bowl of fresh yummies and fresh water and it looks like the treat fairy left you a treat.  Some animals have to work for their treats, don’t you know?  And she is right and when she puts me back down, I eat my treat first and nibble a few yummies to make her happy and then rub against her legs as a thank you.  The male upright does not do this.

While my Sakura was gone, I didn’t feel like playing with my toys or taking naps in her chair.  But she is back and I am so happy!  I heard her say once, Absence makes the heart grown fonder.  As usual, she is right about things.  When she came back and I heard her voice, I came running!  I loved her more than I did a week ago.

And I have a plan so she won’t leave again.  I have made her suitcase my new bed.  Now if she leaves, she has to take me with her!  I think that is a good plan – my bowl full of yummies and her suitcase full of me.

All of you out there have a good week.  Be kind to each other and do something to help feed hungry animals and humans in your neighborhood.  It is hard to smile when your tummy is empty.

Asssignment: Writing 101

I am participating in this Writing 101 session. I’ve not done these challenges before but felt it would help my blogging. We had to write for a timed 20 minutes and this is the result. I am looking forward to the next assignment. This is similar to my poem about Autumn Contemplation, but this is where I am today.

Assignment
Today has been resplendent. I have already posted a poem about it, about Autumn Contemplation or in the Japanese, shuushi.

This is my favorite season of the year. This early autumn, this early coolness, gets me in the frame of mind to work out autumn walks, pull out appropriate clothing and launder to get ready for cooler weather, to start looking at recipes for cold weather comfort food.

The ditches are filled with a wealth of small wild sunflowers. They sometimes overflow onto the road and sometimes, fall prey to passing cars. Fragile golden petals pressed into the asphalt, like a memory pasted into a scrapbook. If you pull over to the side of the road, you can smell the sweetness of them. Their big sister sunflowers have no fragrance.

I sit on my back steps and watch the grey tabby across the street. She keeps looking upward at the tall oak she is lying under. Sometimes she stands to stretch and catch the errant floating leaf, drifting slowly to rest on the grass. I smile as she starts to roll in the leaves, all four paws waving in the air as she twists and turns.

Her humans are doing an early burning of leaves. I see the smoke rising behind their house and smell the woody fragrance as the cool breeze wafts it around the neighborhood.

Overhead, the aki no sora – autumn sky, is a clear blue. I have found I am in love with this sky. A deep joy and peace fills me as I gaze upward at the clear blue, unlike the skies of the other seasons. Pure white clouds seem stuck in place as a hawk circles and hunts. I feel breeze here on earth but in the sky, the breeze does not seem to exist.

The air is clear with none of the oppressive humidity of summer. Distant traffic sounds make a basis for the insects’ buzzing. Cicadas, bell crickets, pine crickets…the voice of autumn speaks softly, shyly asking for entrance to the end of summer. Somnolent, drowsy, steady; no rise or fall to the voice.

A walk to the creek shows how the hatsu arashi, the first storm of autumn, has cleansed it of the muddy waters of summer. Clear and glistening, aki no mizu – the water of autumn. The harvest moon has glowed hugely in the night but now begins to wane and fade. The first coolness of autumn has come.