Archives for the month of: April, 2012
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Blackbirds

April 30, 2012 //
1

April 30, 2011

Two brash blackbirds – safe
in the trees - needlessly squawk
at the passing cat.

Following the design of my ring composition, the haiku for the second half of the month have been speaking to the haiku across the circle.  So, for example…

April 25 (“Periwinkle”) speaks to April 10 (“Safety First”)
April 26 (“Garden Stars”) speaks to April 11 (“Laughing”)
April 27 (“Georgia O’Keeffe”) speaks to April 12 (“Love”)
April 28 (“One Hawk”) speaks to April 13 (“Two Hawks”)
April 29 (“Blue Freedom”) speaks  to April 14 (“Green Flames”)

Today’s haiku serves double-duty being the last haiku in one of the four months with 30 days.  It speaks across the month-ring to April 15 (“Woodpecker”), and it acts as a latch closing the month-ring and connecting the end of the month back to its beginning, April 1 (“Fools”).

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Blue Freedom

April 29, 2012 //
1

April 29, 2011

Bright green begins to
unfurl, unfold, unafraid
to face blue freedom.

Why are we so afraid of freedom?  That is simple.  With freedom we have no one to blame.  All problems are our own creation.  With freedom we have no excuses.  All mistakes are our own.  With freedom we have no one to whom to pass the buck.  All decisions are our own.  We must all be Harry Trumans with the awesome and awful responsibility for our own little worlds.

For us we must follow the example of the tree: to be what we are; to act from the center of our being and become manifest; to unfurl ourselves vulnerably to the waiting world and partake in this blue freedom.

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One Hawk

April 28, 2012 //
1

April 28, 2011

A still hawk statue
perches on a high oak branch:
I cannot let go.

This haiku speaks across the month-ring to the haiku from April 13 (“Two Hawks”).  The hunt of two separate searching hawks is ended.  There is now one unmoving, unmovable hawk and it has found me.  I feel the earth under my feet grounding me while I let my spirit soar.

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Georgia O’Keeffe

April 27, 2012 //
1

April 27, 2011

The petals quiver.
Does the young pink tulip thrill
at bumblebee’s touch?

Georgia O'Keeffe "Pink Tulip" (1926)

I love when different creative media talk to each other or talk between themselves: literature talking to literature, literature talking to art, art talking to music, etc.  It is why the more one delves into literature and art and music, the richer the journey becomes because creative artists have been talking to each other over time for centuries and responding to each other’s responses to the world.  The more you “read” the more you enter into that conversation.

Take one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s sensual flower paintings and translate it into a haiku.  That is what I have attempted with today’s haiku.

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Garden Stars

April 26, 2012 //
1

April 26, 2011

At dusk the jonquils
glow like stars to wish upon,
like wishes granted.

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Tiny Surprises

April 25, 2012 //
1

April 25, 2011

Periwinkle blooms
peak through here and there – and there!
- tiny surprises.

Like life, a garden, when one becomes more aware, is actually full of tiny surprises.  It isn’t, of course, that our awareness changes what is, but rather our awareness changes how we participate with what is, how we invite wonder into our lives.

If our goal is that we must get from here to there we will achieve it and find ourselvesthere with no problem, and no wonder.   We eliminate other things that might get in our way, that might stop us from our goal.  We focus on the goal – thethere – and eliminate the journey.

One might ask, “Are you saying we should stop to smell the roses?” And my response would be, “I don’t think so.”  I think it is a completely different mindset.  For at least some of us, myself included, the stopping and smelling becomes just another goal to check off our list of things to do.  I have seen this when people go on vacation: they have so many roses they want to smell that they dash by a blur of tiny surprises along the way.

The mindset that I am proposing is more of a goal-less openness, a bountiful emptiness ready to be filled with tiny surprises.  Perhaps the purpose of your time in the garden is weeding, but the journey is an experience of openness that may spontaneously take you down surprising side-paths. In this openness Time disappears because it is of no consequence.  Maybe the garden gets weeded today; maybe it doesn’t.  Wonder may get in your way.

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Red Maple

April 24, 2012 //
1

April 24, 2011

Soft brick-red tassels
of the red maple drape down
like frozen fireworks.

One thing that has changed for me as I write these haiku about our garden and its surroundings is that I attend to it better.  I notice things I did not take note of in the past.  The garden seems stranger and more miraculous one moment, and thus more intimate and real the next.

Watching our red maple (Acer rubrum) come alive in the spring as it re-starts its annual cycle, I am amazed by how much I have missed in my own backyard.  It displays first a fine brick-red when it flowers in clusters (as it does today in this haiku).  Then the tree appears yellow-green as the leaves begin to open and green as they mature.  Later, as the year wanes, they slowly turn to a purple as they transform themselves to red-orange before the leaves fall and the tree becomes barren once again for the winter.

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Delirium

April 23, 2012 //
1

April 23, 2011

It’s yellow madness!
Who can calm the daffodil’s
delirious blooms?

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Forsythia II

April 22, 2012 //
1

April 22, 2011

A constellation
of yellow blossoms startle
the forsythia.

One of our gardens is called the “Forsythia Garden” after the two established forsythia plants that grow there.  One of its long flexible branches dipped to the ground a few years back and took root in the earth.  This fledging plant was separated from its mother and transplanted to another garden, the “Hosta Garden” across the yard.  Here it has grown, displaying its star-spangled branches in the early spring for us stargazing gardeners.

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Fugue

April 21, 2012 //
1

April 21, 2011

A fugue in the trees:
redbird echoes redbird while
two sparrows chip in.

Let the music play.

Let the music that you hear dig around the ground where you are rooted, loosen the ties that bind you to the been and bring you to the be.

Let the music that loves you lift you in its arms, hold you like a tender flower of this noteworthy now.

Let the music that moves you remove the tick of the tock and slow-dance you back to the beat that dances in your heart.

Let the music that sends you transplant you to this place where grace and goodness grow.

Let the music play.

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