The CDHK challenge [Carpe Diem Haiku Kai #1856: Restarting?] laments the nasty strife of the past 2+ years but finds a glimmer of hope in a haiga where the image is a superb sunrise photo. My response is another haiga, with 2 haiku and another visual metaphor.
Category: haiga
Foaming at the Mask
~ Thought I was on a roll after I revised a copy of a previous post for a new challenge. Then I relearned a valuable old lesson. The hard way? Of course. ~
Innocence
Children need to learn
that paths are slick and rocky,
but some lead to light.
Image © Patrick Jennings
Rocky ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #292
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When He Pulls Strings
Dancer’s wooden mask:
leather hinges swing open.
Drum throbs; shaman chants.
~ ~ ~ ~
Hinges swing shut as dance ends:
hidden face; revealed spirit.
Photo © Trustees of the British Museum
~ ~ ~ ~
Khan Academy | Transformation Masks
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Oak Tree Hymn
Acorns spread the faith,
and leaves consecrate the world.
Church window, no wall.
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October Cloud
Sailing on fall wind,
a flock of droplets migrates.
Each is a small world.
Sailing ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #286
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Two on Mortality in 3-5-3
~ Mortality #1 ~
Emergent
from dancing atoms,
life is short.
Emergent
from dancing atoms,
life is short.
~ Mortality #2 ~
Let’s live life
with defiant joy,
all the way.
Let’s live life
with defiant joy,
all the way.
Carpe Diem Haiku Kai … #1850 dried grass
“Dried grass” in the challenge comes from Basho’s last haiku, written as he was dying. My response imagines him rallying to console his grieving companions.
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Layer Upon Layer
Smooth outer layer.
We see rough inner layer
when the light changes.
~ ~ ~ ~
Layers nest like Russian dolls,
when science shows us atoms.
Layers ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #283
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Summer Compromise
The grass in my lawn is eager to grow into a shaggy mess, so I cannot always postpone mowing until some other plants in the lawn have set seed. But I can do the next best thing and get almost another week from some blooms, plus photos and a 3-5-3 haiku.
Optimists, Some w/o Neurons
Being rooted makes plants easier to photograph than animals, but plants do twitch with the breeze and ruin careful compositions. Cautiously optimistic, I shoot repeatedly and hope a few images catch the air’s calm moments. This post’s haiku and images suggest that sometimes optimists win.
Henley’s Indomitable Trees
One of the few nineteenth century poems that move me is Invictus by William Ernest Henley. The poem’s spirit of unflinching defiance can be expressed in more contemporary ways. (Henley’s way is still good.) After one very contemporary way inspired by trees, we end with a quick riff on forms and freedom in poetry.
Two Slim Chances
While I have never visited the Galapagos Islands, I treasure a framed print of a photo taken there by Laura Zito, who captured a bright red crab against glistening wet black rock. What chance have I to see something close to home that looks much like that? Very slim. But still
Better Than No Chance at All
Helicopter seed
lands on shiny new asphalt.
No chance to grow here.
I walk away, then go back.
I move it to damp bare dirt.
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Sharing
Slow shutter needed.
Daffodil and tulip share
early morning light.
~ ~ ~ ~
There is enough for us all,
if we take less than we want.
I considered posting my photo wordlessly, with the post’s title as a hint that I have something beyond a nice image in mind. Too subtle. Compulsively explicit, I wrote a haiku. Then I expanded the haiku to a tanka.
I hesitated. The tanka’s last 2 lines might be too preachy. Then I read the Gandhi quote in a great collection of images and quotes: Our Beautiful, Broken World (curated by Mitch Teemley).
Thanks, Mitch. The time for subtlety is long gone.
Haiga with Several Time Scales
Haiku poems commonly deal with events on short time scales. In a split second, the frog jumps into the pond. In minutes, the sunset fades. In days, the cherry blossoms fall. How about decades? How about millennia? They can show up too, along with the split second that a camera’s shutter is open.
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Sunlit Moment
Mums are good silk fakes.
Rock is real and will outlast
both mums and viewer.
I dithered over whether to respond to
Scale ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #268
with the material above. With small differences in format, it was posted 2020-04-17. Tho usually reluctant to repeat myself, I’ve noticed that bloggers I respect sometimes do repost things they feel are still relevant. I’ve also noticed that 11 months is quite a while on a cyberspace time scale.
Oh well. It’s rare that I settle on a combination of angle and settings that I really like before the light fades or shifts. Seize the moment.
Rainbow Zen
The rainbow images that illustrate haiku here are in an elite group. (Wish the images were mine.) The rainbow does not just coexist with whatever else is in the scene; it works with the other elements and lifts a good image to greatness. A bonus awaits those willing to read the notes and credits at the end of this post.
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Arizona Sky
Wings gliding past arc,
high above Mogollon Rim:
raven and rainbow.
Out of Reach
Hard fingers rise up,
trying to grasp soft colors
as the rainbow fades.
Hard fingers rise up,
trying to grasp soft colors
as the rainbow fades.
No Pots of Gold
Seek ends of rainbows.
You will not find them? Okay.
The quest is enough.
Seek ends of rainbows.
You will not find them? Okay.
The quest is enough.
§: Notes and Credits
While there are zillions of fine photos of rainbows, the images used here are in an elite group. (Wish they were mine.) The rainbow does not just coexist with whatever else is in the scene; it works with the other elements and lifts a good image to greatness.
Subsection headings below are also links to pages with more detail.
§§: Harvey Stearn’s Photo of Raven and Rainbow
Click on the link above if U have any interest at all in how dramatic skies can contribute to landscape photos. No interest? Click anyway and U will soon have one. The photo I used comes near the end in a long series of splendid examples.
I first saw this photo as a standout among standouts in a collection curated by Mitch Teemley, whose blog has many great collections alongside funny and/or insightful original content. The idea of a haiku with what became the last line of Arizona Sky came to mind quickly, but writing other lines I liked took longer. Much longer.
§§: Randy Olson’s Photo of Termite Mound and Rainbow
I wrote No Pots of Gold and later found this splendid photo to illustrate it (and inspire some haibun prose). The photo proved to be a gift that keeps on giving; it inspired Out of Reach.
§§: Naturalism in Haiku
Rainbows are one kind of spectrum. There are many other series rather like the somewhat quantitative R-O-Y-G-B-I-V of rainbows, and sometimes it helps to think of those spectra as rainbows. Two examples follow.
This post’s series of haiku exemplifies the spectrum of naturalism in haiku. Like Arizona Sky, many haiku are specific descriptions of a momentary observation. Like No Pots of Gold, some are toward the other extreme: general expressions of attitudes toward life, with at most a metaphorical reference to nature. Out of Reach is in between.
There is also a spectrum of compliance with the 5-7-5 rule, which is revered by some and reviled by others. Like most of my own haiku, the ones in this post comply. Tho I do respect the 5-7-5 rule, I also wrote a haiku that goes 3-2-5 and a haiku with just 2 lines. No apologies.
Don’t submit blindly to restrictions on
subject matter and nuances of form,
for haiku or any other kind of art.
Let the rainbows glow.
subject matter and nuances of form,
for haiku or any other kind of art.
Let the rainbows glow.
Hope at Sunrise
Patrick Jennings’ challenge #259 salutes the sun in the great outdoors. Sunlight is both a source of hope and something to hope for. The same is true in more intimate settings, and the New Year got off to a good start at sunrise on 2021-01-01.
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Hope ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #259
Morning Sun on Winter Wreath
Bird, bow, and berries
scatter rays of hope to me.
Today may be good.
Mellow Curmudgeon 