23 Jun 2020
by lynn__
in haibun, haiku
Tags: bullheads, cornfields, green, jeep, river, sunlight, turtle, wildflowers
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!
25 May 2020
by lynn__
in ekphrastic, haibun
Tags: Broadway, Denver, grid, lights, summer
Piet Mondrian: Broadway Boogie Woogie
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.
28 Apr 2020
by lynn__
in haibun, Uncategorized
Tags: cherry blossoms, frog, grass, haiku, Japan, master
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.
02 Mar 2020
by lynn__
in haibun
Tags: biosphere, C.S. Lewis, Mars, science fiction, volcano, war
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.”
mars’ olympus mons;
civilization’s high peak–
active volcano?
image courtesy of NASA
03 Feb 2020
by lynn__
in haibun
Tags: barn, calf, heifer, newborn, shed, silage, spring
Hello, world, my name is “Shadow”
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…
01 Jan 2020
by lynn__
in haibun
Tags: calendar, canoe, desk, farm house, snow, trees, twenty-twenty, white-out
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.
15 Oct 2019
by lynn__
in haibun
Tags: archaeological dig, Blood Run, catlinite, indigenous, mounds, Oneota
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.
indigenous tribes
leave indelible trail on
history’s pages
30 Sep 2019
by lynn__
in haibun, Uncategorized
Tags: autumn, farm, grove, hope, insects, lawnmower, monarch
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.
monarch messenger
flashes autumn’s joyful hues
arresting beauty
01 Sep 2019
by lynn__
in haibun
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!
05 Aug 2019
by lynn__
in haibun, question poem, Uncategorized
Tags: abortion, culture, death, hate, violence
Awful week of three senseless public shootings by U.S. citizens at garlic festival in Gilroy CA, Walmart shopping center in El Paso TX, and popular nightclub neighborhood in Dayton OH.
We wonder why domestic terrorists perpetrate violence against unsuspecting victims? Why should innocent people die while enjoying their life? Why is our society spiraling down into a culture of hate and mayhem?
Why is it legal for mothers (whose nature is nurture) to pay doctors (whose profession is healing) to dismember their preborn infants? Why do fathers abandon or abuse their own children after conceiving them? Why do we insist our lives are superior and consider other lives expendable? Why not choose to love and protect one another, starting with our family?
Perhaps there is some connection here, an unnatural progression from selfishness, disrespect, broken relationships and alienation into a macabre culture of death. The shooters are guilty of crimes against humanity but we are all culpable.
killing on home turf
abortion births death culture
all victims bleed red
24 Jun 2019
by lynn__
in haibun, Uncategorized
An amazing animal to observe is the North American river otter. An otter’s dainty ears, alert eyes and long whiskers give it an engaging appearance. Otters are curious and sociable creatures. Their antics entertain and they like to perform.
Otters are the only water-loving members of the weasel family and are perfectly designed for swimming. They have extra-thick fur that traps air between the under-layer and longer guard hairs to keep their skin dry. Their torpedo-shaped bodies with short limbs are impressively streamlined. Webbed hind feet prove efficient as flippers. Claws, speed and teeth equip this carnivore for proficient fishing.
My husband and I enjoyed watching the river otter dive, swim and spin in its tank at the Houston Zoological Park. I recorded a brief video which later delighted our grand daughters. Each creature designed by God reveals his wisdom and glory. Each plays a vital role in nature’s ecological balance.
river otter glides
zoos educate and research
discover wonder
28 May 2019
by lynn__
in haibun
Tags: babies, death, family, grief, journey, mourning, sorrow, tears, why
We lament with this family suffering awe-ful grief. Beloved infants lost at 26 weeks gestation; twin grandbabies happily anticipated. Expectant mother, more than halfway through pregnancy, heard heartbeats and viewed ultrasounds but no more… no more expectations, no more movement, no more fast swooshing of babies’ hearts beating their distinct rhythms. Only mother’s lonely heart beats now, heavy with slow sorrow.
The relentless spring rains mirror this drowning grief. Tears falling in torrents, flooded emotions. Erosion of the soul. What kind of broken world is this, where little lives can be cut short by the cord that was their lifeline? We may ask “why?” yet not receive an acceptable answer to the anguished questions. We have only our faith in God himself to cling to. Lord, have mercy on your children. As we remember precious twins taken; remember us too, for we are dust.
grief’s painful journey
rosebuds fade…family mourns
inadequate words
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