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April 7, 2014

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Photography, Poetry

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A Walk to the Lake Haibun

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.
– Thích Nhất Hạnh

I walked today, despite my recent recovery from norovirus and a week of not eating properly. I started off slowly, stretching sluggish muscles. My feet curved into the familiar rhythm, welcoming the soft, spongy aqueduct pathways. I headed for the lake side, wanting sunlight glinting strongly into my eyes after a winter of weak, gray light. I passed many gardens, my eyes yearning for color, a contrast to brown and gray.

Seed pods in Spring

seed pods straining, listening for the song of the wind

The wind did not disappoint, but sang of ocean waves. Seabirds called distantly, crows nearer. Robins quarreled over grasses. A cardinal flashed by, a scarlet blur. The air warmed to the sixties and finally snow seems truly gone. Was it icy only a few weeks ago? The sunlight made me feel alive, inside and out, and I turned upward, smile opening wide. Neither did the gardens disappoint, providing color in miniature.

Yellow Spring Crocuses

saffron crocus
sunlight reincarnated
honey sweet scent

The yellow crocuses stopped me cold, so startled to see gold strewn on the ground, riches to my starved eyes. Most plants were still dormant, buds still tightly furled. Only the crocuses had thrown open the treasure box, spilling nature’s jewels. Words seem pitiful in comparison.

Purple, yellow and white crocuses

tiny crocus trio
blossoms dancing on breezes
music to my soul

Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham

Dovetailed deliciously with the Ligo Haibun Challenge, Quote Week.
Also includes a new form of poem, a monoku, that I cannot tell apart from the American Sentence Haiku.

64 thoughts on “A Walk to the Lake Haibun”

  1. Hi Brenda! I discovered your blog through Robin – via the Sisterhood of the World Award. I particularly love the opening quote. Lovely poem and photos. Glad Mother Nature, in all her beauty, helped you to feel better. Now if she could just stop the rain! Be well. ~Karen~

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    • Robin is fabulous, so adorable and sincere. My big sis, if only. 🙂 Thanks for coming to visit. I’ll come by and see you, too. I’m always happy to meet another friend! 🙂

      The rain will stop and we will all be complaining about the heat, all too soon. LOL Blessings, Brenda

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  2. Pingback: The “Be Inspired Weekly” Writing Challenge #24 | Paint the world with words

  3. Wow Bren, I really liked your composition here! I liked it how you merged different nature forms with a monoku and wrote this beautiful post. I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you for your participation! Regards

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  4. The recovery and need to see and feel nature and flowers has a lovely, whimsical, magical feel to it. It almost goes without saying that each reader takes the walk with you again everytime it is read. I hope whimsical is the right word. There is a softness to this that is meditative, and a real lightness, because there is no dogmatist philosophy behind it, while at the same opening eyes. Your words are like the wind. It is interesting how your recovery added so much to the piece, giving it an underlying, personal theme. Very nicely done.

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    • My walk was like coming home. A return to my own place of balance. That is such a nice thing to say: my words are like the wind. Thoughts are like the wind, too, blowing through, taking the dust away. I hope spring is finding you, in your far north Lappland.

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        • Our shrubs are greening, but the trees have not released their leaves yet. Any day, should see the whole world look different. I love that moment of green blossoming.

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    • Yeah, it was a bummer. I managed not to whine publicly, though. 🙂 Luckily, my life has resumed, just in time for flowers to start blooming. Life is good. LOL

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  6. Sounds like you had one of those awakening moments! 🙂 Glad to hear you are feeling better! We get that norovirus in the UK too, I’ve never had it, but I have a few older friends who got sick with it. I hope you are enjoying your food again now? I love the poem – sunlight reincarnated, and honey scent really does conjure up feelings of the warmer side of spring! And those flowers are really beautiful – such shining glories – well captured!! 😀

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    • Thanks, Suzy. Your comments are always appreciated. 😀 The hard part of the norovirus is getting rid of it, because you just get weaker and weaker, but you need energy to clean and clean. One of the local colleges is struggling to get rid of it! Students and staff are sticker in large numbers. They’ve stopped them gathering, and they are cleaning and cleaning… It’s nasty!

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  9. Brenda, when the crocus bloom you know spring is here finally. Being in Florida I don’t get to see them anymore, that is one of the drawbacks of living down here. Take care, Bill

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  12. So glad you are feeling better. Did the rest of the family escape the norovirus? It’s such a nasty bug. I love the golden crocus but I don’t think I have ever tried to see if they have a fragrance. I must do that next spring.

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  17. I feel sorry to hear you were having health issues. Nature heels better than anything else. It’s so nice in your neighborhood! Great pics!

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    • Yes, my walk was very healing. Luckily I was finally ready for it. I had walked two days earlier, and felt like death warmed over afterwards and had to nap. But today, I was zinging with energy when I got home.

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    • It was a lovely walk. We sat by the lake a while, too, watching the birds play, chasing each other through clouds. The water moved in perfect ripples, still, yet undulating.

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  20. Wonderful post! Glad you are doing better, I must have missed that you were sick if you blogged about it, unless if faded from memory with what all hecticness has been going on in the lives of offline friends and family…

    I really liked the line “Only the crocuses had thrown open the treasure box, spilling nature’s jewels.”

    It’s funny how I noticed today in one of my old poems, I spoke about my words being pitiful regarding the beauty about what I was describing, when in retrospect I can see my words used to describe what I saw, were quite illustrious.

    What you said after the line I quoted is perhaps a better way to critique one’s admiration of something beautiful…. sometimes in comparison words are less, but I believe often they can stand well on their own… and sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts, like your words with the pictures 🙂

    Have an awesome night Brenda!

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    • To stand beside the flower seems a moment to remember, and the words seem fleeting, and yet they will last now as long as the photo. Funny how that works. I’m sure your words were illustrious. I find only over time do I see if I really like something or not…

      I didn’t blog about being sick, I had no beautiful words for those moments. No words at all, in fact. I’m so relieved that void refilled.

      Thanks for your thoughtful comment, and you have an awesome night, too!! Warmly, Brenda

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  23. I’m glad you are feeling better! Wow the corpus was a lovely surprise! Thank goodness for the sun! I’m glad you enjoyed the day! 😄

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    • I did enjoy my day! Only two days before I was unsteady on my feet! Luckily I bounced back fast. I feel so much zing just from an hour in the weak spring sun. Can’t wait for summer!

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