Tag: dVerse Haibun

Circles of Change

Memory is a circle of love that’s not always pleasant. It allows us to experience the present so we can take action moving toward the open future. It offers a passionate place to stand. The present unties the circle giving us the opportunity to spiral that remembered past into a new direction while memory weaves it all back into another circle.

That probably makes no sense.

The painful changes I have experienced through my life have been to watch parents, and others, get sick, emotionally and physically, understanding and misunderstanding these things as caused by environmental, agricultural, medical or dietary mistakes I once thought of as progress. It’s not that it was all wrong. It just needed some kind of correction that didn’t make sense to me earlier. As we let the circle untie and spiral forward there is no reason not to trust that we will do our best to add what we can to make it, in spite of everything, more beautiful.

That probably also makes no sense, but it does to me, until it doesn’t, but that’s when I can look forward to the heartbeat opening the future once again.

HAPPY PUMPKIN ORANGE
AUTUMN CHANGES MAPLE RED
SPIRALS ROUND AND ROUND

Linked to K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge with the theme circles.  I am also linking to dVerse Haibun Monday where Merril D. Smith is hosting with the theme changes or transitions.

Photos: “Pumpkin Circles”, above, and “Pumpkin Spheres”, below.

Pumpkin Spheres

Murmuring Thoughts

If I murmur, talk or sing
Guard the magic with this ring.
Hold the thought and come what may
Let the sacred children play.
Understand but don’t read through.
Spirit will enlighten you.
Then forgive and what we’ve done
May be forgiven. Life’s begun.

Text: Linked to dVerse Quadrille hosted by De Jackson (aka WhimsyGizmo) with the word “murmur”.  Because of the lines about forgiveness I am linking this to Debbie Roth’s Forgiving Fridays.  I don’t know what this poem means.  It just murmured its way here.

Photos: “Icicles in the Sun”, above, and “More Icicles”, below, taken at noon on this relatively warm winter’s day.

More Icicles
More Icicles

Walking in Circles

From the distance of a lifetime, a spiral describes it better, but the smaller ones seem circular to me like when walking from one side of the room to the other, turning around and then walking back. Or, walking to the library, standing tall with shoulders back so the air can more easily enter my lungs and my eyes can look right at it, trying to realize, even when I can’t, that everywhere I am still able to go and everything greeting me on the way from sidewalks and apartments to trees and clouds are a gift from or a hint of heaven.

I think in circles as I walk in them. Sometimes I pop those thoughts and sometimes I enjoy them again and again like that ancient story of a man and his dog that keeps coming to mind. Perhaps they died much like my ex-brother-in-law who was found burnt in an apartment fire. His dog stayed with him on his lap. It is them I see walk to the gates of heaven and find that sign, “No Dogs Allowed”. The gatekeeper confirms that there is no problem with him going in, in spite of everything, but not his dog. Since heaven wouldn’t be heaven if one were alone, I see him turn around. He takes his dog and they walk toward a scenic, spiraling path that appears before them and everywhere they go is heaven.

GEESE AND DUCKS RETURN
PEOPLE WALK THE PARK IN TWOS
FLOWERS COMING SOON

Linked with dVerse Pub Haibun Monday hosted by Toni Spencer with the theme “the best things in life are free”.

Sunrise

I don’t know why I wait for the Sun. It rises anyway and never says a word.

There must be something wrong with this. Why hope the morning’s newness breaks so I can know what’s really true? Why hope this beauty sets once it has finally risen?

 

WAVES DISTURB THE BEACH
SEAGULLS WATCH THE MORNING WAVES
LOOK! WE’RE DOING THIS

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday Ekphrasis and Haiga hosted by Björn Rudberg.  Photo: “Birds and Sunrise” by the author.

Waiting for the Full Moonrise

Before this moon will rise the sun must set. I wait alone upon the beach except for strangers waiting for it, too.

And then we see its fresh, faint light. It lifts above the ocean’s noisy waves. I watch until I’m sure it’s safely high enough to journey on alone.

SAND DUNES SHELTER LIFE
LIFE HOLDS DOWN THE DRIFTING SAND
TURTLES WATCH THE MOON

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday #29 hosted by Michael Grogan at Morpethroad with the theme “waiting”.  Photo by the author.

Almost Friends

The farmhouse rests on a flat, grain-growing, dusty, wonderful world. I am three. Outside I want to meet the dog who guards the farm.

Then I am on the ground. Someone says they will shoot that dog. Another stitches my eyebrow and cheek. I did not mean to frighten him.

BUSY BUTTERFLIES
LAZY BRUSH AND QUIET AIR
LIZARD RUNS AWAY

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday 28.

Aurora

I don’t know what Fred was looking at, but the Aurora Borealis shining over the path was holding my attention one evening as we sat on the porch of my cabin. I pointed Fred’s head in the direction of the lights. He didn’t seem interested. He was to get his own dog house, a fancy one, since I had spare lumber. He would also get the required chain to make sure he didn’t chase my neighbor’s sheep when he grew up. I would eventually learn that Fred had as much interest in those sheep as he did in the aurora, but my neighbor’s purebred puppy, Princess, still too young to breed, was on his mind.

How do I know she was on his mind? Well, I don’t, and I would like to think he was still too young to be thinking about her, but he wasn’t interested in the aurora. He wasn’t interested in those sheep and she was barking in the distance. Civilized people normally introduce their dogs while walking through some nice park, but with my neighbor worrying about his sheep and what Fred might do to Princess, we never introduced them. “You should have that dog neutered,” he once advised. He was right, but I package my mistakes in boxes of reason and wrap them with brightly colored righteousness expecting only joy. I thought to myself that I wouldn’t want someone doing that to me, but I did, eventually, build that dog house and chain Fred. Thinking back on that peaceful evening with the aurora dancing in the sky, I suspect Fred knew everything he needed to know about Princess and she was, at least for the moment, glad I wasn’t going to neuter him.

FLUFFY WHITE FROSTING
CLINGING WET TO LEAFLESS TREES
BERRIES STILL BRIGHT RED

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday. 
Photo: "Covering" by the author
Hear the author read this haibun on SoundCloud.

 

The Path To My Home

I am only inclined to tell this story, before I can no longer speak, because no one I have been rash enough to tell it to so far believes it. Right now, I’ll restrict myself to what is believable and that is simply that a puppy followed my neighbor pushing his way up the long path through the wild grass and tall red osiers that were not beaten down by my narrow, daily footsteps. He looked like a friendly dog although I cannot remember why I agreed to take him in.

His name was Fred. I let him sleep inside my cabin containing a hand pump for water, kerosene lamps for light and a wood stove on the edge of central Maine’s vast forest lands. On his first day Fred tore open the sealed food bag and stuffed himself with dog food until his stomach bloated. When he saw me refill his bowl he knew this was home. Eventually, Fred would earn the title of “bad dog”. I forgave him. I hope he forgave me. However, that gets into the unbelievable part that I’ve promised myself I must tell, but which I cannot tell, just yet, because I am trying to make it clear how cute he looked walking innocently through that tall grass.

WATER FLOWS DOWNHILL
FILLING STREAMS FROM MAPLE GROVES
AUTUMN LOSES WARMTH

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday.  
Photo: "Orderly Entanglement" by the author.
Hear the author read this haibun on SoundCloud.

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