Tag: haiku

Illusions

jono55

Easter Sunday was a beautiful day here in Paradise. Amy, Neil, and Claire were here for a quick visit and we all took a walk around Lake Chipeta, a small body of water just on the edge of our metropolis. There were several fishermen and one fisherwoman working the water, mostly staring at quiet lines. We saw hundreds of trout swimming in the clear water who showed no interest at all in what the anglers were doing.

I had mentioned before we got to the lake that if we were lucky the pair of ospreys who sometimes hunt there would be around, and there they were! Such handsome birds. We were treated to the sight of one of them diving into the water and coming up with dinner in its talons.

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This morning I was thinking back on some old trials and as I remembered the healing that came from writing poetry I realized that I was not making present-day use of what had helped me in the past. I’m sorry, but it’s possible that my coping strategy may become your burden.

A life entwined with ours
And now it is returning
To its spirit home

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There is much to grieve these days as more and more Americans come to grips with the knowledge that their country is not and perhaps never was what they thought it was. It’s silly to think of someone my age suffering from a loss of innocence, but how else can I describe it? I thought at heart we were a good people, dedicated to the principles outlined in the Constitution and its amendments. I believed that racism, our most serious flaw, was slowly being diminished, an abscess in the body politic that was steadily being drained.

Now I am not so sure. The very fact that enough of my countrymen were vicious or dumb enough to elect someone like Cluck means that I was too much living in La La Land. But I believe that there are more than enough people who share my version of governmental and social naiveté and who can together face down this ugliness. The growing turnouts across the country in the No Kings rallies attests to that. The amazing strength that was and is Minneapolis when they braced the evil that ICE has become attests to that. But I harbor fewer illusions that this will be easy.

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No One Said It Would Be Easy, by Sheryl Crow

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A true tale. There was a very old and confused woman who had been hospitalized for weeks because she was so severely constipated. This was back in a day when someone could be admitted to hospital “for a rest.” At any rate, enemas and laxatives and the full force and variety of nursing and physician skills had been brought to bear over many days without much to show for it. Until on one momentous evening the lady, with a great deal of howling and many many curses, finally produced a monumental bowel movement.

The nurses were exhausted. The patient was exhausted. Suddenly the old woman spoke, not with her usual low-pitched murmuring, but in the loud and clear voice of a Shakespearean actor on stage:

Next time let HIM bear the child!

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Theme from Southern Comfort, by Ry Cooder

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Last evening Robin and I attended a lecture/performance by Craig Childs here in Montrose. The auditorium seats 602 souls and it was packed. He is a very popular author out here in Paradise, and has written several books on science, archeology, and the natural world. As he spoke there were photos and videos projected behind him on a large screen, all dealing with his most recent book subject, The Wild Dark.

There has been a ton published in recent decades on light pollution and the importance of holding on to all of our dark places around the globe. His talk illustrated that through the mechanism of two men bicycling out an abandoned road into the Mojave Desert on a course straight out from Las Vegas. Each night they would take readings on some sort of specialized meter, and they had to journey almost 160 miles before the lights of that city were no longer a factor.

The good news is that we are aware of this form of damage to our earth and the rhythms of our lives, and the world is slowly but steadily getting darker. Who knew? Humans capable of rational thought and action … c’est incroyable!

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talkin’ about your Madison shoes …

jono55

It’s now a couple of days since parts of America went to the polls and I am still basking in the warm glow that came from the burning of tyranny in effigy that took place on election day. It’s only a step, but as that guy Armstrong said in 1969: ” one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Of course there is still such a long way to go, and the outcome is still uncertain, but, hey, let’s just lie here for another few moments, sipping on our iced coffees and wondering whether Haagen-Dasz ice cream will ever come packaged with an Ozempic chewable nestled inside.

Here in Paradise there were mixed messages. The people whose first impulse at every election is to cover their fences with banners declaring “No New Taxes” even if there aren’t any tax-related issues on the ballot were successful in locally defeating a couple of state tax increases while across Colorado they passed handily. Our school board elections went entirely for conservatives and the hope is that at least they are among the Republicans who can read. It’s a high bar, but one can dream.

We had a recall election for a county commissioner who has been in office for only a year, but ha managed to reveal himself as incompetent, a bully, and a complete fool in that short time. He was recalled, and his replacement is an Independent who actually has credentials, experience, and can properly say the words aluminum and anonymous, which puts her above 99% of Americans in intellectual achievement.

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With our great leader now using children as pawns and denying food to millions of them just for spite, around our community people are bumping up their contributions to the local food banks.

Robin and I and some of our friends from Indivisible set up a table outside our City Market grocery on Friday loading as many canned goods into the back of the Subaru as the good people of Paradise will contribute.

We collected more than $1000 in canned goods and other non-perishable foods in just three chilly hours. It filled the back of our Subaru and spilled over into two more vehicles. When we delivered our stuff to Shepherd’s Hand, a local food bank, we were greeted by the workers with relief, for their shelves were becoming bare. At least two of them had tears in their eyes, and I scored three major hugs by large, strong, and grateful women.

It is beyond disgusting that our government is using the well-being of children to try to achieve their sorry ends. There appears to be no level of depravity too low for them. Really, it makes me wish I believed in Hell, that I might contemplate their futures with unholy glee.

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Let’s suppose that you are being interviewed by a visitor from another galaxy altogether. Let’s suppose that among the questions they put to you is this: “We keep hearing about something called rock and roll … what is that?” My suggestion would be to remain completely silent and play the following video for them. For me this is rock’s essence, being done by what must almost surely be one of the best American bar bands of all time. George Thorogood and the Destroyers.

Here they are playing I don’t know where at sometime in the past and when they were at their peak. I will now be completely silent.

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We had guests staying with us this weekend. Robin’s daughters Amy and Allyson were able to get away for a couple of days to come help Robin celebrate her birthday week.* A good time passed too quickly. Saturday we drove to the Black Canyon National Park to tour the burned areas and take the hike at the end of the road, which is named the Warner Point Trail. It winds through one of the remaining unburned sections and ends with a precipice on two sides.

Brisk autumn weather, good company, enough food to munch on and a warm place to do it in. Gracias a Dios.

*Robin and I are not sticklers for needing everything to happen on the actual anniversary of the date we were born, so we have renamed it birthweek. It is a much more flexible way to look at it as far as scheduling events, and you can have cake on enough successive days to be a serious health hazard. I am typing this while in the doctor’s office where I am being given purgatives to treat a bad case of the butter frosting blues..

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The Indifference of Heaven, by Warren Zevon

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We are slowly coming to the end of one of the most perfect Fall seasons I’ve experienced. Loooong slow turning of the leaf colors, along with cool days without the winds or freezing rains that tear the leaves from the trees prematurely. A slow-motion autumn.

I’ll close this post with a haiku by Matsuo Basho, an old friend of mine, notwithstanding that he passed away in 1694. We’ve had our moments together.

on a leafless bough
the perching and pausing of a crow
the end of autumn

[The photo was taken on a walk at the Black Canyon National Park in the year 2015.]

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Haiku, Winter

jono55

I have started to write the Great American Novel scores of times. Each effort was eventually scrapped. If I have any talent at all it seems to be in shorter pieces, essays, poems … the sort of meanderings found in this blog, for instance.

Which is why when I first came across haiku and bothered to learn something about it, I knew instantly that I was among friends. It was the economy of it all, the formalities, the natural themes that appealed to me. The Japanese must take all of the blame for starting me on this path. Traditionally haiku are three-lined poems, of 5-7-5 syllables per line. Most of those I selected today but the very last one are by Japanese masters of the art, but that 5-7-5 format did not survive translation.

To me, they are like photographs, whereas a novel might represent a movie. It’s not too hard to put myself or my experiences into the picture with haiku, which is part of its charm.

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When the winter chrysanthemums go,
There’s nothing to write about
But radishes.

Basho

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Song For A Winter’s Night, by Gordon Lightfoot

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Here,
I’m here—
The snow falling

Issa

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Going home,
The horse stumbles
In the winter wind.

Buson

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Colder Than Winter, by Vince Gill

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Cover my head
Or my feet?
The winter quilt.

Buson

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Winter solitude—
In a world of one color
The sound of wind.

Basho

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Winter, by Tori Amos

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Miles of frost –
On the lake
The moon’s my own.

Buson

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The snowstorm howling,
A cautious man treads upon
Bare and frozen earth

Anonymous

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Winter, by Peter Kater

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Some comments on the music –

Song for a winter’s night: there’s a cabin, a crackling fire, and a big ol’ down quilt to get under. We just have to find where Gordon put them all.

Colder than winter: I have experienced winters of the heart, and since I know that I am not unique, perhaps you have as well. Vince Gill never sounded better or more plaintive.

Winter: from Tori Amos’ first album, an exceptionally brave and talented young artist just getting her career underway.

Winter: yes, yes, of course Peter Kater is New Age-y as he can be, but it’s still a rather nice way to pass a few minutes. Remember how way back in those dim dark days (almost) beyond recall when your teacher in “music appreciation class” would put on a piece of music and ask that you imagine that it was snowing or raining or that the oboe’s voice was a duck quacking? Well … have at it.

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