My friend Marie is a force of and for nature. She’s come by her fierce soul honestly, through the trauma of living with, not one but two, abusive husbands consecutively; and losing an adult son to hit and run. She’s seen her share of suffering and grief. Yet, she cares about others and about the earth, our home. It hurts her to see people trash it.
She encourages everyone who will listen to recycle. When I lived on the farm (where we burned our own garbage) Marie accepted all my empty milk jugs and other plastics to put in recyclables bin in town. Now I live close to town and bring in our recyclables myself, including cardboard and glass. That makes Marie proud.
Marie picks up trash while on our walks and checks garbage cans for plastic bottles within reach. Sometimes her little car is full of bags of materials to be recycled. It’s almost a part-time job for her, now in her seventies. She may be small but she has a big heart and faith. She believes we must take better care of God’s beautiful world.
earth’s creatures fragile plastic rings can suffocate choking on our trash
Written for Earth Day 2024, “Planet vs. Plastics” theme and linked to dVerse poets where Frank hosts haibuns.
The Creator precisely designs and tunes the cosmos so that twice yearly the plane of the earth’s equator bisects the sun which means day and night are in perfect balance. The solar system moves with exact timing, aligned in an intricate celestial dance.
At county fair, teams of horses pull wagons in outdoor arena. Harnessed together, two powerful animals work together in perfect harmony. A white and black team, Daisy & Midnight, are trained to trot around ring in rhythmic synchronization, bells jingling.
Sun and moon mark time on earth, ushering in four seasons in turn. As plants soak in every available ray of sun, equinox signals leaves to bud with new life or dry to die; coloring our world. Our lives cycle through the months, years and seasons.
Thank God for retirement! People may think the idea unbiblical but I disagree. God told Moses that priests should serve from age 25-50 and then retire.* They could help the younger priests after that. Of course, you don’t quit working; just quit working full-time and do what you can to help the next generation(s). You are free from the pressure to perform!
You must earn this stage of life and then you can reap the blessings of age. It’s hard for many to have enough to live on in later years because none of us know how long we’ll live so what is “enough”? It may be elusive but what a grand concept…to finally make time for the things you really want to do. Travel, exercise, volunteer, pray, read, spend time with spouse, visit friends, enjoy grandchildren, try hobbies, write poetry!
Growing older is not for the faint of heart, especially as the heart may faint. Body parts give out and may need repair or replacement but there’s no real cure for aging. You may even reach invisibility…people no longer pay attention to you which can be frustrating because you finally have the wisdom of experience! Yet now you are free to be you without worrying what other people think…except you want to be a better example to the youngsters.
to quote my dear aunt,
“aging is not for wimps”
travel down new roads
*Numbers 8:24-26
Linked with dVerse poets where Frank J. Tassone is hosting haibuns…
Country roads beckon on sunny Sunday afternoon. Put on farm cap and sunglasses, grab water bottle and hop into open jeep, painted red for fun. The warm sun smiles down on husband and wife as we bounce along past scenes of cud-chewing cows and cornfields.
Congenial conversation shortens our trek to a state park. We park jeep to hike trail which meanders along rock cliffs, laughing waterfalls, and the deep-pooled river. Walk up sweet sweat. Admire wildflowers, glimpse elusive deer, and discover a painted turtle.
We pause next to low stone dam where bullheads mingle towards evening. Hear gentle sound of water spilling over, see sunlight filter through trees to sparkle on river’s surface, and soak in this one shining moment, hand in hand.
leafy glade’s green growth—
natural sabbatical
under God’s heaven
Join Lillian at dVerse poetics for a traditional haibun/haiku challenge!
Take me back to Broadway at night! Let’s experience the electric excitement in street lights’ shine, neon signs blinking, billboards’ glare, and stream of traffic headlights or taillights in opposite lanes. Life in Denver drives on pulsating grid.
White delivery trucks, yellow taxis, blue mustangs and red VW bugs follow the streets, avenues, and boulevards of my childhood and adolescence. Dibs on the back seat of school bus! An urgent siren sends all traffic curbside to let a flashing emergency vehicle past.
Be ready with horn or brakes and quick maneuvers. Circle carefully around bustling parking lots. Wait your turn at busy car wash or fast food drive-up window. Go slow through used car lot…lit by aliens? No, it’s a police helicopter checking back alleys.
girl’s eyes reflect lights
cruise city on summer night
buzzy as beehive
Kim hosts haibuns and invites us to “meet Piet” on “Broadway” at dVerse Poets pub.
Frank Tassone invites us to write haibuns on Basho/Shakespeare at dVerse Poets.
Matsuo Basho lived simply and walked lightly on the island of Japan. His tiny home was in the village of Edo. One spring day, Basho felt restless and decided to travel by foot across the country. He went in search of cherry blossoms. For his journey, Basho wore a paper hat, black robe, and woven grass sandals. He carried his ink stone and writing paper wrapped in a cloth.
He followed the winding river, sat in a cool waterfall cave, and visited a thousand-yr.-old twin pine. Eventually, he came to an orchard of blossoming cherry trees! A farmer loaned him a horse to ride through a vast, grassy field. He took baths in hot springs and swam in the sea. He ate whatever he found or was given along the way: vegetables, wild rice, noodles, fish.
In the mountains, Basho joined friends for a full moon party. Drinking tea and rice wine, they composed poems together about the night sky. Basho often stopped in his travels to quietly listen and observe. He watched the fog, heard grasshoppers, touched an iris, and tasted rain. Focusing on the moment made Matsuo a haiku master.
do not bash basho
wikipedia image
named himself “banana tree”
writer of frog pond
Information on Basho’s life taken from a lovely children’s book, Grass Sandals, by Dawnine Spivak with beautiful illustrations by Demi.
Linking this haibun to dVerse Poets pub where Frank Tassone is our host…
Mars, that ready, ruddy, rusty, dusty planet hangs between Earth and Jupiter; named for the Roman god of War. We contemplate his heavenly body in the mighty month of March: muscular, iron clad, and vengeful. Is not war an erupting march to madness, leaving black death and blood-stained pockmarks in its wake?!
Violent dust storms, extreme seasons, and an atmosphere of carbon dioxide make Mars inhospitable yet aerospace scientists dream of manned flights to the fourth planet. My sons participated in a Mars project where 6th graders designed a biosphere for future immigrants. We once visited an abandoned biosphere in Arizona where personnel’s’ personal relationships were the demise of the mission.
Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles and C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy put science fiction on the cultural map, stretching literary minds and stirring curiosity in our celestial, terrestrial neighbor beyond our moon. In Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet, Oyarsa, the ruling power of Malacandra (a.k.a. Mars), declares,
”The weakest of my people does not fear death. It is the Bent One, the lord of your world, who wastes your lives and befouls them with flying from what you know will overtake you in the end. If you were subjects of Maleldil [God of Malacandra] you would have peace.”
It’s Monday morning and our skittish range heifers cautiously approach wooden feed bunk. Breakfast is a generous helping of fragrant silage and a bit of cow mix mineral supplements. The farmer counts, re-counts furry heads and realizes one is missing.
He discovers her in the back of open cattle shed…with her newborn calf, first of the season! Little black bull is healthy and already standing. Our son carries him to shelter in the barn. We soon coax mama into stall where they can nuzzle and nurse.
calf eyes wide to world
fresh cow licks her baby clean
new life birthed in spring
Linking this spring haibun to dVerse Poets pub where Frank hosts today…
at home in our white-sided farm house, i’m poised to write as i sit by my small white-laminate study desk in our quiet, white-walled guest room. bare square of first day of new year on the white-paged calendar stares back at me. i look out white-framed window before me into our white-drifted snowy grove, hoping for inspiration but mind feels blank, like tv screen white-out.
over past year, i’ve often gazed out this same window, inspired by natural scene of trees with white-sunlit leaves waving in breezes. i’ve watched white-puffed daydream clouds sail summer skies while squirrels played in the grass, rising on haunches to show white-furred bellies.
why would someone park canoe trailer with white-topped carrier full of life vests right in center of my woodsy window view? old skeletal metal rack with two aluminum white-stickered canoes mounted upside down and tied with bungee straps distracts my vision. without the sun, everything feels cold on this white-iced winter day.
it’s twenty-twenty
year clear for perfect vision
life needs fresh outlook
I wrote this on Jan. 1 and it seems to fit with Bjorn’s “beginning(again)” haibun challenge at dVerse poets pub.
Link to dVerse Poets where Frank J. Tassone hosts a celebration of “indigenous”.
An archaeological dig in agricultural fields reveals ancient city of indigenous peoples: the Ioway, Omaha, Winnebago, Arikara, and Lakota. They settled at the confluence of Blood Run Creek and Big Sioux River, present-day boundary between Iowa and South Dakota.
Mysterious mounds push up; boulder rings outline lodge sites. Horse bones, iron tools, even marine shell wampum have been discovered here. Natives fashioned available catlinite into pipes and clay into pottery. They dug pits for storing grain and other pits for garbage.
This trading center flourished as an economic hub for the region. The Oneota culture left its mark on the land, most notably as a serpent-shaped effigy mound which was unfortunately lost by modern tillage before the area was recognized as an historic site.
It’s haibun Monday at dVerse Poets where we’re writing about insects!
I bounce along, riding the lawnmower around our farm site. It’s windy and warm today…excellent weather for drying the crops for the imminent harvest. We’re glad for the silage we’ve already chopped for our livestock. Cows galumph toward the fence when I stop to toss the fallen apples I gathered for them.
While mowing in our grove, I am discouraged to note many trees show signs of stress. Both ash and spruce host invasive insects that bore into exposed spaces in their bark. An epidemic infestation across the nation appears to have arrived here. Time will tell if it’s lethal for these trees we planted many years ago and nurtured to a protective and glorious expanse.
While fretting about insects destroying our grove, I’m surprised by a singular monarch butterfly that flits ahead of me, leading the way. It flutters into my vision as I pass by again and again. Like a shimmer of hope, it gently clings to a leafy branch. Stunning creature with delicate legs and designer wings sent to lighten my mind in a moment of serendipity.
My greatest labor was bringing each of my boys into the world and working with them as a mother at home. What shared joy to participate in the creation of new life! What secret thrill to feel the first delicate flutterings inside my womb! What amazing privilege to bear a developing human for forty (plus) weeks, alive and kicking! What relief to finally have him delivered safely into the world!
To carry and birth a child is only the beginning of a mother’s labor of love. It will take everything she’s got, and demand much of what she doesn’t yet have, to nurture this needy little one, to protect the toddler, to train a child, to counsel that teenager and raise him/her to capable adulthood. Thankfully, a mother doesn’t labor alone but often the nesting and nurturing details naturally depend on her.
I’ve worked in hospital dietary service, taught kindergarten students and art classes, balanced farm accounts, fed & bedded livestock, drove tractor, mowed lawn, grown a garden, cooked meals and tutored adults in English. But I’m most gratified by the blessing of raising and home-educating our five sons. To serve my family has been, and still is (with the next generation) my high calling…and the hardest job I’ll ever love.
due on labor day
you were born ten days later
now your baby waits!
Frank invites us to write about “labor” for Labor Day and link to dVerse Poets pub. My husband and I await the birth of another grandchild this month as our middle son is expecting his third child…a daughter!
a poem in my pocket 
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