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The Diviner

 

light on the water
before the minnow
its shadow

He knows me this man. He doesn’t claim to, but he does. Not that I’m going to
alert him to that fact, despite the uncanny knack he has of being able to read me long before I’ve taken up my pen. Let him continue to believe I am the insoluble conundrum, an uncrackable code.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been met with a flash-bulb grin and a nudge-nudgewink-wink proclamation along the lines of: “I know what makes you tick . . .” (I’m not a clock); “I know what pulls your string . . .” (I’m not a kite); “I know what floats your boat . . .” (I’m not a marina) & &

one kiss
and you think you know me . . .
peony buds

Where is it located, this Me, this I? Can it be pinpointed on a map; is there a
symbol in the key that denotes me? Perhaps I’m the human equivalent of a little known tumulus, or a spring, long dried up, still whispering its secrets to a 1970s tower block. Could it be that my mystery remains intact, but I’m uniquely traceable, situated on some well-documented maternal leyline? No matter. This me, whatever it is, wherever it resides, is known, somehow, by this man.

scent of rain . . .
the winter hazel
stirs

NOTES FROM THE GEAN 14, December 2012

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Small Comforts

 

Small Comforts

 

bookends…
the embrace that begins
and ends our day

Always rising at the same time. The cup of coffee you bring me before you leave for work. The favourite shirt you keep for Wednesday (the mid-week ‘morale booster’).The expressions known only to us, spoken like charms. This, the comfort of rituals, the invisible cord that binds our loose-leaf days. If there is a god of small things, I imagine this is how he is appeased. They will surely come, those other days, the ones that knock us sideways. But let’s not think of them now.

the book falls open
at your favourite poem…
butterfly

Blackbird song ripples the twilight. A snowdrop pushes through frozen ground. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail it’s spring in the catkinned lanes, then summer is rusting on the vine. White rabbits! Pinch, punch, the first of the month! Over and again, until the leaves are gold and the stoat is in its ermine. Because they will come, those other days, days of pestilence and war, hurricane and tsunami. But let’s not think of them now.

and still
the certainty of sunrise…
winter aconite

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A Hundred Gourds 1:4, September 2012

Crossing the Shades

Für Elise… each star takes its place in the twilight To sit and watch, pinpoint the exact moment the iris is lost to blue. Perhaps Vincent himself has a hand in it. Cobalt, thalo, indigo, wash by wash, the coming of night. This hour the moon and stars have made for quiet reflection. All streams and rivers, all roads now lead to darkness, if we will let them. It could be that it’s the breeze that unlatches the gate, but the dead tread softly, like the scent of lilacs through an open door, but softer still. Grandad, coming slowly up the path, pinches mint between his fingers. Grandma, making something of the leftovers, the cat on her shoulder in its third or fourth life. Dad, sitting on the step, rolls another cigarette. It’ll be the death of him. The one who died before she was born. On a clear night many a flower is touched by moonlight; the one whose name is forgotten; the one which has no scent. once more into the shadows… dewfall hawk —————————- note: *The title is taken from “Afterwards” by Thomas Hardy Contemporary Haibun Online, 8:2, July 2012 Samhain Blessings to all in the Northern Hemisphere!

Dirty Old Town

 

Somewhere Up North, sitting on the bones of its backside with a mangy dog for warmth. white-knuckle sky the homeless man’s broken teeth By the railway station, baring its forearms, silver-white scars and raw ones too. “Look what I’ve done to m’self … can you lend me the money for me fare?” Talks to itself like a madman, white-collar, bluetooth and handsfree .Or lumbers around in hi-vis, grumbling at broom and litter-picker, cursing into bins. Kicks an empty can of Special Brew just for the hell of it. One more thing to rattle away like tinnitus in the gritty cochlear of the universe. spit and polish sun on the veteran’s medals and his shoes Forms an orderly queue, stops for a natter, chats about the weather and the price of fish, marvels at the busker on the corner. “He has a look of my son.” “He could be on the telly…” “I remember me Dad used to play a whatsitsname”. ahead of the rain A Whiter Shade of Pale nicotine-stained Struts in short skirt and high heels even when it’s brass monkey weather. Designer label sticking out and a baby to match. No better than she should be, but a canny lass. “He’s banged up again, but he’s good with the bairn…” Asked what she wants most for her daughter: “A footballer… in the Premier League”. sound of water… by the broken fountain a girl reads Basho Appears out of nowhere with eyes that could fetch ducks off water, a gypsy smile. “Can I read your palm?” “I’m sorry, I’ve no spare change –“ “Just give me what you can…” Can’t say no. Neither could Mam, nor her Dad before her. “Do you take credit cards?” a sprig of heather… you’ll never have much but you’ll want for nothing Gathers at dusk in The Pig and Whistle. Jockeys for position at the bar. “What’re you having, the usual?” “Aye, a pint of mild”. “Make mine a bitter”. Digs deep to buy a round. “Here, love, have one yourself…” “Cheers, I don’t mind if I do”. Imagines saying, “Tell you what, how about a chaser?” The clink of coins, then of glasses. Salt of the earth, a shot of tequila, a slice of lime. another dream floats in the gutter… scratchcard moon Note: ‘scratchcards’ in the UK are ‘instant win’ lottery tickets.

Contemporary Haibun Online, 8:2, July 2012

cayenne moon

 

 

 

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autumn/spring equinox blessings to all!

summer’s daydream

 
a dream
taps me on the shoulder . . .
moon at my window

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twilight . . .
the here to there
of blackbird song

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Greensleeves
the first faint bars of spring
on a snowdrop breeze . . .
a memory of my father
brushing by

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morning stillness
how sweet the burden
of these boughs . . .
cherry blossom mind
shake loose your words

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butterfly
through how many lifetimes
did you pass
before you found your place
in summer’s daydream?

– composed for Robin White on her birthday.

Blithe Spirit
The Journal of The British Haiku Society, Volume 22, Number 3, August 2012

 

in a breath

 

A selection of haiga created in response to recent NaHaiWriMo prompts.

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The Flying Plum Tree

ume flowers! Don’t forget the springtime even though your master is no longer with you. When an easterly wind blows be sure to send me your sweet fragrance.

                                           Sugawara no Michizane  (845-903)

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What little was bequeathed and even less to quarrel over. Some to be auctioned, much to be donated. And what remains? The accusing eyes of strangers in yellowed photographs, second or third cousins on someone’s side, once, or twice removed; several pairs of reading glasses and almost as many sets of teeth; china thimbles, one for every month, apart from May; a birthday book with name after name crossed out. Years from now, who will there be to recall that her favourite of the English Lakes was Grasmere; that she loved one man for twenty years and never told him and that the song she always sang, when she thought no one was listening, was “Strawberry Fields Forever”?

 “Choose a keepsake, a little something to remember her by. It’s what she would have wanted.”

damson flowers

in her delicate hand

a recipe for jam

 On the way home, I buy a new journal – handmade, with Japanese binding – and the best fountain pen I can afford. I make an occasion of my first entry, carefully gluing her legacy to the inside cover, then, painstakingly, in the cursive style I was taught at school, I copy out the ideas I scrawled in biro in a reporter’s notebook a few days earlier:

 It is time to say goodbye, my friend. You have served me well. It seems only yesterday I felt your unfamiliar weight in my hand, but you soon found your stride and ran like a young wolf across the snow. There was no denying the hair from which you were made! Now you are old, like me, and I will care for you as I wish someone might attend to me, but there is no one left. All whom I have loved are long gone…but this much you know. Like Tobiume that uprooted itself to fly to its master, such is my desire to be with the ones who have passed.

 I will wrap you in this silk, the colour of the blossoms Tenjin-sama himself wished would blush his cheek. I remember how I once went to the shrine in Egara with my father. Ah! The scent of those two plum trees by the main hall, one white, one red…There was a prayer spoken by the chief priest and then there were flutes, I think…yes, flutes! Afterwards, the priests led the procession to the oven. There must have been five hundred brushes.  How quickly the flames caught hold of the bamboo, the bristles. I saw so many spirits dance upon the air!

 

plum blossom shade…

laying the brush

to rest

 

 

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Fude Kuyoo: a memorial service for writing brushes

Tenjin-sama:  Sugawara no Michizane,the Shinto kami of scholarship, calligraphy etc , poet and politician.

Tobiume: the flying plum tree which legend has it flew from Kyoto to Dazaifu to be with Sugawara when he was in exile.

Presence #47 2012

 

 

 

are we there yet?

 

skimming a stone
across a dream
where Hebe
pours her nectar…
ankle-deep in stars

 

 

all the love letters
you never wrote…
my lips on your neck
where my name was inked
skin-deep

 

 

digging deep
in the pockets of my dreams…
in the broken barn
the wattle and daub
of the swallows’ nest

 

 

A selection of my responses to NaHaiWriMo and Tanka Poets on Site prompts from the last few days.

 

 

 

first harvest

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throwing wide

the backyard gate…

Nag Champa

on the altar-stone,

beneath the moorland sky

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In celebrating Lammas I thought I’d share some of my responses to Kathabela Wilson’s wonderful  July NaHaiWriMo prompts.  Kathabela has also (tentatively) started daily prompts on her Tanka Poets on Site Facebook page. (The tanka above is my response to ‘outdoor space’)

With love and thanks to Mother Earth, my loved ones and all who walk this path with me.

Claire