February. The old tortoise grumbles about being so late with urgent or seasonal chores, then sees how light falls in yet another way on the Xmas garland that is still up. Hmmm. Is the old tortoise still up for photography in dim light?
Category: haiga
Vocal Visitor
Caw from unseen bird.
Crows are louder and shriller.
Could be a raven.
Overlay © John Cobb | Unsplash
While my own sightings are few and long ago, I believe ravens still inhabit the region where I live and am confident that I can distinguish the croaking caw of a raven from the canonical caw of a crow. (Don’t hike much any more; still big on alliteration.) I also have some of indigenous folklore’s admiration of ravens, so I celebrated hearing one with a haiku. That posed a problem.
An ordinary image of a raven would not work for my haiku about an unseen bird thought to be a raven. I considered posting the haiku by itself, but I like images. Hmmm. I can photograph the nondescript view toward where the call seemed to originate. Can I then find and tweak an image of a raven to make a ghostly overlay that fits the mood of the haiku? Yes!
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Dusted for Fingerprints
Snow on lawn.
Tracks from last mowing,
seen again.
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Shadow Song
Gourds bask in sunlight;
shadows sing a silent song.
They both contribute.
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Lingering Leaves
Cherry hibernates,
safe under pine’s watchful eye.
A few leaves linger.
11-07 |
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11-24 |
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11-26 |
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The cherry had one last leaf on 11-26.
Did it sing Nunc dimittis before it fell on 11-30?
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Last Song of the Leaves
The sound of dry rain
fills the air above my yard.
“Keep the rake handy.”
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Turning Sequence
Still-green oak
will follow maple
in due time.
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Flaming Breath
Grumpy dragon
stays outside photo frame.
It’s a bad scales day.
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Cherry Meets Maple
Still green and growing,
cherry meets older maple
and finds a mentor.
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Waiting in Early Autumn
Some leaves change color.
I wait for a pot of gold
to end a rainbow.
Waiting ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #330
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Mortality and Defiance
~ Mortality #1 ~
Emergent
from dancing atoms,
life is short.
Emergent
from dancing atoms,
life is short.
~ Mortality #2 ~
I live life
with defiant joy,
all the way.
I live life
with defiant joy,
all the way.
Defiance ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #328
An earlier version of this post responded to a challenge inspired by Basho’s last haiku, written when he knew he was dying. Contributors were asked to imagine Basho writing a haiku for his closest followers from his deathbed. While I admired the resulting excellent sad poems, I defied the expectation of sadness and imagined Basho rallying briefly to encourage his companions with a pair of short haiku in 3-5-3.
My response to the previous challenge bungled the initial line of Mortality #2. My first thought was that Basho might tell his followers to
Live your lives / with defiant joy, / …
Telling people like me how to live is a reliable way to elicit angry defiance, so I rejected my first thought, neglected to defy my own fondness for alliteration, and settled on
Let’s live life / with defiant joy, / …
despite some misgivings. Hmmm. Wish I had used
I lived life / with defiant joy, / …
as what Basho might say on his deathbed. Hmmm. I can use it now in the present tense because I am still fairly healthy for my age, in defiance of the odds against those who bungle things more consequential than a line of poetry. So I use it in the revised Mortality #2 here, with defiant joy.
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Rules Took a Round Trip
While I knew that many rules about haiku are rules of thumb rather than definite requirements, I thought that poems in haiku form must have 3 lines. Then I wrote a 2-line haiku. While I was not the first to write a 2-line haiku, I may have been the first to write one prompted by a glance at a doorknob.
Rise & Shine
Awning. Window frame.
Sunlight flows between and forms
arrow head on drape.
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Sunny Day at Niagara Falls
Wet thunder booms as
water sweeps itself away.
A rainbow lingers.
Photo of Iguazu Falls © Marcio Chagas | Unsplash
(Image has been cropped.)
My haiku was inspired by the contrast between loud rushing water and a silent steady rainbow, as pondered by Boris Glikman in a prose poem about a visit to Niagara Falls. The contrast cried out to be displayed in the kind of deliberate swerve common in haiku poetry, often between the middle and final lines.
I wrote the haiku, searched for an appropriate image to make a haiga, and was happy to see a hover caption (on one of the Unsplash pages linking to the photo used here) that placed the photo at Niagara Falls. I am grateful to Andrew Porteus for noticing that it’s really at Iguazu Falls and providing a much needed adjustment to the photo credit when posting the haiga to the Niagara Falls Poetry Project.
My blunder reminds me of my one point of agreement with Ronald Reagan and a great meme:
Meme as posted by Troll Quotes on Pinterest
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Sharing More than Light
Slow shutter needed.
Daffodil and tulip share
early morning light.
~ ~ ~ ~
There is enough for us all,
if we take less than we want.
Light ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #319
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Shells on a Sandy Beach
A crab lived and died.
Empty claws and carapace
sing an elegy.
Photo © Patrick Jennings | Carapace and Claw
Click on the link in the photo credit to read the photographer’s own poem inspired by the fine image.
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Mellow Curmudgeon 