tenderly again
by this light I imagine
birds floating asleep
A late entry for this week’s One Single Impression.
Lighthouse
Category Archives: One Deep Breath
A kind of beauty
to summer weary
eyes… only the snow
transforms the dying garden
It’s been a while since I played with the poets at One Deep Breath. For more *beautiful* haiku in response to this week’s prompt, click here.
Spring song
pink moon rises full
shadows cast through my window
say something of spring
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“Tonight’s full moon is known as the Pink Moon and also as the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and the Fish Moon. Historically, Native Americans living in what is now the northern and eastern United States kept track of the seasons by giving a distinctive name to each full moon. This name was used to refer to the entire month in which the moon occurred. With some variations, the same moon names were used throughout the Algonquian tribes from New England to Lake Superior.” – from The Old Farmer’s Almanac
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For more Spring/Fall Songs go to One Deep Breath. Links to poems should be updated tomorrow.
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Sandy at Gardenpath wrote about the full moon and included a gorgeous composite image yestderday in this post which is what got me thinking about the moon and the many names we give it.
Short and sweet
winter’s forgotten velvet reveals a negligee edged in pink
This week’s prompt at One Deep Breath was to write a one-line haiku. For more one-liners go here.
Today’s temps in the mid 70’s were enough to start the Star Magnolia in the front garden to bloom. Hopefully it won’t rain or frost before the show really gets underway. Star Magnolias bloom early, well before the more common Tulip Magnolias. I foolishly planted ours on the south side of the house and every year March’s unpredicatable weather mars the delicate blossoms coaxed from dormancy by a few sunny days.
Color(ful) for One Deep Breath
leafless trees
just beyond the brown hilltops
spring waits there
just beyond the brown hilltops
spring waits there
This week’s poetry prompt at One Deep Breath is color(ful). You might’ve noticed lately that I enjoy photographing the landscape when there is snow cover. There’s not been very much of it this winter, but I especially like a view like this when there is nothing but a range of browns, made even more noticeable blanketed in white. I love the contrasts, and play them up when I edit a photo like this.
On this particular day I was anxious to walk along the field’s edge and to see the wet bottomlands where skunk cabbage should be emerging. Soon, on a warmish and windless night, the woodcock will make its first twittering display flight from the stubble to the right of the path. Later into the season will come the mourning cloaks and the bluebirds and a kestrel to hover above the newly green fields on the welcoming breeze of a spring day.
But not yet. I couldn’t take a step towards that hillside or the marsh beyond the scene I captured here. The ice-crusted snow made it all unreachable. Spring is there, over the hilltop, and after the thaw.
Containers for One Deep Breath
Each year, usually for our wedding anniversary, I can expect to receive a new crop of ornaments for the tree. We favor glass ornaments of all shapes and sizes; the quirkier and more unusual the better. Each is unwrapped from its tissue paper and carefully placed on the tree where it shines briefly before being packed away again in the attic. My husband takes the tree down and puts it away. Left to my own schedule it would still be standing at Easter; I find that job to be too depressing on any but the brightest of Spring days. I love the distinctive glow the tree lends to the house at this season and hate to see it go.
We live with the boxes spread around the living room for a week or so, and decorate the tree a little at a time, beginning with the largest or most treasured ornaments and finally placing the plain colored balls at the last to fill the empty spaces. I’m often surprised to find a particularly beautiful one that I don’t remember buying or being given.
Close Up for One Deep Breath
the lotus unfurls
beneath stained-glass wings; dragon
grasping the sacred
This week’s prompt for One Deep Breath is Close Up (Close, Closer, Closest). Writing haiku is much more difficult than it would seem at first glance, but I so enjoy the challenge and the stumbling steps I’m taking with it. I may just add a haiku *how-to* book to my Xmas list this year. Santa always appreciates a suggestion or two! Also on my list this year is a macro lens for my camera; I’ve offered to pitch in to Santa’s fund with the extra $ I make teaching… we’ll see if Santa is feeling very generous this year.
I’ve posted this dragonfly and lotus pic before, but it is one of my absolute favorites – a happy accident from beside the pond – and especially nice to look at now that the fish and plants are asleep for the season.
Friends and companions (Renga)
urgency of bloom
hurry to flower and seed
fuel for the migrants
Autumn’s children moving south
in flocks like sunset-colored clouds
A rather loose interpretation of this week’s theme for one deep breath. A Renga is a group-effort sort of poem, written with others. I may try to get the girls at work to help me on another one, like Jane Poe – Nevermore did. Stay tuned.
**Updated: I harassed some of my coworkers into writing a Renga today, as stress relief. Their group effort follows.
The poets (from top left): Josie, Linda, Eileen, Kathy, Deb, Tina
sharing and caring
all day, every day, all night
true friends are always near
sadness is fleeting, but often
good friends take the tears away
friendship sometimes hurts
to hold a grudge does not work
smiles and laughter do
some friends test friendship daily
other friends are always true
bonded together
friendships come in different shades
great love every one
emotions express feelings
friendships help us cope through life
chums embrace an alliance
of familiarity
I’d also like to call your attention to a beautiful post by Mary who’s been commenting here lately. In Memories Almost Forgotten she shares some very special memories of her dad. Please stop by there and have a look.
In other news, my big brother stopped by here long enough to razz me about being Daddy’s Little Girl. Check the comments on this post.
Stolen glances – a Haibun for one deep breath
Quite a few of the blogs I enjoy reading – gardenpath and endment come to mind – participate in a weekly poetry prompt from one deep breath. I thought I would give it a try this week! Participants are writing in a style known as Haibun which is a combination of prose and haiku. I’m no poet, but enjoyed the excuse to share this photo I took today while out running errands.
I was delighted to come across this field and its huge round bales of hay. Most hayfields here were cut and baled and stowed away months ago and I never took the time to stop and photograph any of them. Most farmers here use square bales anyway, but I’m partial to the look of these round ones. I love the challenge of finding things to photograph that don’t look like NJ at all. A hayfield like this one is probably something that many of you drive past each day and don’t even give a second thought to because they are such a common sight. That may even be the case in other parts of NJ, but I love to see scenes like this that make me imagine I’m somewhere else or sometime in the past. The truth of the matter is that this pic was taken on the front *lawn* property of a corporate headquarters. I was trespassing on their private road when I took the pic.
On with my attempt at Haibun:
Speeding past shuttered farm stands and pastured horses, a dozen crows sort through the debris of a hayfield as I pause to watch them. The sun is warm at noon and the air tinged with the hint of a heavy frost to come. There is just enough time to step out of the car, walk a few steps, and steal this image of the beauty above, below, and around me before hurrying on to other things.
the color of change
leaf by leaf and day by day
Autumn at my feet