Santa’s crunching on the snow.
Children want to see
Reindeer, sleigh and Santa, so
He crunches merrily.
Some complain that he’s not real.
Some pick on his weight.
Some complain no matter what,
Ending every praise with “but”,
So long as he’s not late.
Text: Linked to this week’s dVerse Quadrille where De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) is hosting and the 44-word quadrille must contain some form of the word “crunch”.
Photo: “Waiting for Santa” by the author.
Robert Frost called it the “sound of sense”. I bust that phrase into two and think of it as “sound” and “sense”, but Frost more accurately describes the reality of poetry. Still he doesn’t completely describe poetry, because no one can. That’s a good thing. It gives the rest of us and our descendants for the next hundreds of millions, or billions, of years something new to do.
My view of sense is taking me into two different directions. After reading Jane Kohut-Bartel’s “Song of the Nightingale”, I want to understand better the 8th century Japanese collection, the Man’yōshū. After reading Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays, I want to learn more about Hafiz (and Rumi) and the theme of forgiveness. Along these two ways of sense may the sound that’s right appear.
TWO PATHS LEAD AHEAD
SNOW HIDES SUMMER’S LEAFY WAYS
BOTH LOOK NOW LIKE ONE
Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday where Toni is hosting asking us to write about our plans.
Photo: “Future Mystery” by the author.
I have never seen an owl, but I have seen pictures. I don’t remember if they ever appeared in my dreams. There they could come in many forms representing, so I’ve heard, good luck or bad or death or wisdom perhaps with the sprinkling of Merlin’s understanding of reality. Unfortunately, like most people, the scientific nonsense I believe in, without being aware of it, would still keep me from taking such dreams seriously. It’s really too bad. Maybe the owl has brought me bad luck through the back door? Maybe, because I refuse to take that deep, transforming breath and become as wise as those owls are said to be, I deserve all my current blindness? Maybe this, too, will all turn out well in the end?
OWL WISE AND BOLD
WINTER VIEW IS CLEAR BUT COLD
PEACEFUL FALLING SNOW
Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Victoria is hosting with the theme “owl”.
Photo: A winter scene in Techny Park from last year by the author.
I’ve given up on the terms “selfishness” and “altruism”. Those words assume we are individuals with debts and credits in a karmic bank account that can be exchanged. Kindness, especially forgiveness, is a communal experience including even onlookers* and crossing generations. There is no point measuring it. It overflows all containers.
I remember picking up the couple in the evening as I entered I-95 in central Maine. I figured they had to go to the next town, but their destination was one hundred miles further north. They were as tired and messed up financially as I was. She was well along in her pregnancy.
That was so long ago it feels like another lifetime. I drove them to their apartment which was as rundown as the farmhouse room I was renting and left them with a smile. They never stopped smiling back.
WITHOUT MEASURING
AUTUMN SUNLIGHT OVERFLOWS
ONTO EVERYONE
*I realized this after reading Sarah Connor’s post “Kindness — haibun for dverse”.
Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Toni is hosting with the theme “kindness”. I am also linking this to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays.
Photo: “Bright Leaves Bright Light” by the author.
The east side of Chicago would be Lake Michigan, the most beautiful side of Chicago which I prefer experiencing from a dry distance since I can’t swim and I have no intention to learn. Hopefully this makes the city itself happy knowing that when I walk along the lakefront I prefer her beautiful arms.
WATER WAVINESS
TEASES ME WITH SUMMER’S HEAT
WINTER’S CHILLY TOUCH
Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Bjorn hosts with the theme of “water”. Come join us writing haibun.
Photo: “Chicago from Navy Pier” by the author.
Announcement: Christopher Fielden has accepted my story, “Keeping His Cool”, as Story 62 in Chris’s Colossal Cliche Count Writing Challenge, a 150-word-max humorous flash fiction challenge with the goal of using as many cliches as one can cram into that restricted space and hopefully still writing a readable story.
The first frost tells us that the trend will change. More will come until more doesn’t come anymore. It is corrective whether one learns a lesson from it or not, perhaps how to better stay warm. We do not circle back into last year’s frost. We spiral into this fresh, new one.
WARM THEN COOLER AIR
RIVERS NEED NOT OVERFLOW
TREES DROP DULL, DRY LEAVES
Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Victoria C. Slotto is hosting with the theme of first frost’s voice.
Photo: “Autumn Purple Yellow Flowers” by the author. I took this at the Chicago Botanic Garden.
I rarely descend to the existential depths of metaphysical dread. Why would anyone want to? Besides there’s nothing down there. That’s why it’s dreadful. Why get all miserable over nothing? Sanity stays on the bright surface with the breathable air and the cleansing rain. Or, to put it in other words: don’t look down–the deeper depth is toward the sky. That leads me to my problem. Although I don’t have anything particularly dreadful to write about, which should make the sophisticated and critical reader question my allegiance to the dark side, I no longer have any motivation to shut up.
SMILING LETS ONE BE
SEASONS’ PLAYFUL METERS RHYME
TIME TO LIVE FORGIVE
Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Bjorn is hosting. Toni provided the prompt why do we write in the way we do? I am not sure if I answered it.
I am also linking this to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays because it occurred to me when I woke this morning that if I really want to levitate to a deeper depth I will have to stop weighing myself down with making sure karma is distributed equitably. There’s plenty of karma to go around.
Photos: “Water Flowers”, above, and “At the Chicago Botanic Garden”, below, by the author.
Autumn changes focus on school schedules and condo movements, but now for our children, not for us. It’s the same with Spring. In between these events, like sunlight going through the leaves of trees, there is viewing the lake and parkways where trees can reach for the sun because the buildings are small enough for them to have a chance.
LIGHT THROUGH PATIENT TREES
BUILDINGS BLOCK THE AUTUMN SKY
BOTH PROVIDE COOL SHADE
Text: Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday. Toni is hosting with the theme “season changes”.
Linked to Jilly’s Casting Bricks – September Challenge. Consider this one part (first or second) of a double haibun and add another haibun.
Photo: “Sidewalk Flower with Dark Sun” below by the author linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme “Let the Sun Shine in” and Mundane Monday.
Circling rain from hurricane
Leaks through the wrecked roof.
Only hope can drain:
Up comes wavy proof
Drowning the dry place
In torrential waste.
Nightmares blocking bliss
End with fear and pain.
Sink with thoughts of only this.
Sink in wet of wider rain.
Linked to dVerse Quadrille Monday hosted by Bjorn using the word “bliss”. I am thinking of Hurricane Harvey. The poem also represents the “acrostic” form which I plan to use for this Thursday’s dVerse form prompt.
Photo: “Cloudiness” by the author linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with theme “A Cloudy Configuration”.
At the Chicago Air and Water Show we watch antique planes from World War I go straight up into the air and turn down dizzy across Lake Michigan looping and looping. Then we watch more advanced planes go even higher into the air and turn down looping, pretending to run into each other. They were from World War II. Finally we see planes that could float above the water like a UFO. They move even faster. They were from World War III.
Along the lake we watch seagulls rest one per piling in the water, well-behaved, living in the light, indifferent to the air show, keeping their distances and yet clearly together. Back home I notice that my neighbor’s flower bed is still colorful, but showing its age in the light of summer joy.
PETALS DROP WITH AGE
AUGUST AIR WARMS SEAGULL PEACE
EVEN WE CAN FLY
Linked to dVerse Haibun Monday hosted by Toni with the topic, “What did we you do on your summer vacation?”
Photos: “Lines and Waves” above and “A Neighbor’s Garden” below by the author both linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the themes “Living in the Light” or “Rain”.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 