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 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.
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.
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.
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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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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Thanks! I had fun with it. Cheers, Brenda
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🙂
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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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Your haibun really felt like a breeze over the walk. Quite magical…! Ah spring, that brief season in May! I wish the leaves would appear but plenty of coniferous trees here to keep a lot of green…
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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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Great photos! Sorry to hear about the norovirus.
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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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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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Glad you’re back on your feet again — it’s been an ugly time for viruses!!!!
Beautiful haibun — absolutely beautiful. 🙂
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Thanks! Yes, harsh winter, harsh norovirus situation in my area. We are not the only ones. Hope you are well and healthy!! Hugs, Brenda
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Finally gave in and went to the doctor – the virus turned into a sinus infection. Oh well. But I’m on the mend!
All the best —
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I hope you are better soon!
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Much better! 🙂
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Sorry to hear you’ve been laid low – good to know you are back up and running – nice pictures to go with the relief that you’re over it all that whispers in the words!
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Yes, so happy to be better. I hate being sick!
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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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Crocus beat the forsythia even. 🙂 I’m expecting the forsythia any day now. 🙂
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oh what a lovely crocus trio! And I love your 2 haikus.
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Thanks!!
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Brenda, what a magical story you unfolded for us. Thank you so much. And I hope you are well on your way of feeling better. BIG (((HUGS))) Amy
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Yes, even better today, despite hammering rain. April showers bring May flowers. 🙂 Hugs, Brenda
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YES!!! It is raining here too, in fact I wrote about the rain. OH there is no lovelier sound than rain! Brenda, we had snow for SOOOOO long! I rejoice for this rain! GREEN is coming! LOL xx Amy
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Yes, indeed! Happy to have rain and not snow. 🙂 You are a ray of sunshine today!
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Why, Miss Brenda, I do thank you! And I will take a bow! LOL Love, Amy
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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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The kids were passing the norovirus around, and back and forth at school, that’s how I got it. First one, then the other, then the first again a week later. Deep sigh. Exhausting. Fingers crossed they don’t get it at school again!!
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Very very exhausting!
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Yes, let it be gone this time! For good!
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so sorry you were sick, but happy you have returned, just like spring, at last.) beautiful poem –
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Thanks! I was seeing in black and white. LOL I’m back to seeing color again, like someone landed a house on the wicked witch of the norovirus!
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What a treasure of color and words. Best wishes for your continued recovery. 🙂
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Thanks, yesterday was my first good day, but I think today will be another. 🙂
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So lovely. What a delightful walk, photos and haibun.
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Thanks! I am sad I missed all the prompts last week, especially the photo art, but I was wretched in body and soul. Luckily it was temporary.
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Good to know you are well again. Like you, I’ve been missing lots of prompts lately too. It’s hard to keep up sometimes.
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You need to find a place, then you can relax again. I will keep my fingers crossed for a quiet, safe place with a bit of earth to feel connected to nature.
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This is so lyrical…so beautifully written!
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Thanks you!
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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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What a lovely, dreamy, enchanting post! Full of spring and promises and renewal! 🙂 I wonder if you saw any fairies?:-)
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Shh! They look like a bit of blur on a photograph, but don’t give them away! 🙂
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What a treat that was:)
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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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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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What a fabulous post! Wonderful quote, wonderful poetry, ethereal photos! Sigh~
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Ah, that’s lovely of you to say! I was so happy to shake that hideous illness!! And to find the world beautiful again. 🙂
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Great…what a lovely walk! I very much enjoyed the photos and the haibun was sublime.
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Thanks!! I had to write it, I guess I’m all better now. 🙂
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Yeah..glad you’re all better!
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Me, too! Jus in time, too, because my husband’s out of the country.
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🙂
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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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Wonderful! And I have always loved that quote from Mr. Hanh, to 🙂 Peace . . .
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Thanks! The quote is a favorite of mine, too. 🙂
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🙂
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