heavy jeweled branches
offerings for the fairies
delightful berries
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Category Archives: Poetry
Sun Setting on Autumn Haiku
stormswept hillside bare
autumn sun setting due west
limbs touch namaste
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Hopeful Fairy
Take my message, crow |
Fly straight to my fairy lord, |
My exile need end. ||
This great art was by MichelleMarie Antell, and I have added a haiku inspired by her gorgeous forest fairy maiden. I hope you like our collaboration. Warmly, Brenda
Letters from Japan Haībun
Used Courtesy of ArtifactsandFictions
Dear Joanie,
I arrived safely, and my company has given me a nice hotel. It’s fall here, too. I should be home soon. Take care of mommy.
Love, Daddy
father gone too long
black marks on paper not enough
leaves falling slowly
Dear Joanie,
I hiked high up a mountain Saturday in the morning mist. The mist receded before me, always out of reach. My contract has been extended, and I will be here at least another month. I miss you. Will you please write me more often?
Hugs, Daddy
mother sad and still
sitting by the cold window
white snow blowing past
Dear Joanie,
My heart is with you, but I have to stay a little longer. The temple bells wake me in the morning. I’m working long hours to return home to you. Tell your mother I love her.
Fondly, Daddy
cold empty playground
wind singing and swaying swings
dad played soccer here
Dear Joanie,
I so appreciated the photographs and book you and Mommy sent for my birthday. It lightened by heart, just as the sun is warming the ground and calling forth buds. My project is finally finished! I will be home in a week after a few more meetings!
Love, Daddy
sunshine glints brightly
ocean waves beat against stone
Japan behind mists
Dear Joanie,
Thanks for your joyful letter. I’m so happy spring has arrived. Here, the trees have leafed up, too, and the grasslands wave in the mountain breezes. The air is fresh, and smells of flowers. The final meetings took longer than I thought. One more week, and I will be home. Here is a picture of the view from my window. I think of you every day.
I love you and miss you, Daddy
heron rose from reeds
salt marsh seagulls call hello
sun sets on absence
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Prepared from art by Suzanne and inspired by the Haībun weekly prompt. Also written for the DPChallenge, which I have never tried before. Although I write haiku, I have never paired them with a letter-writing prose style, so this was a departure for me. I’m writing all five haiku in one go because: Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Blogging, oh, my!
Happy Thanksgivukkah Haībun
Turkey with Yarmulke
The leaves have fallen, and New England has weathered its first winter storm, with howling winds and temperatures 20 below freezing. We are all preparing to celebrate the gateway to winter, thankful for shelter, food and good company. This year our Thanksgiving feast will have an added spice, a warming blanket of older meaning.
Whatever you celebrate this November 28, Jews across the United States will be celebrating Thanksgivukkah with culinary imagination and joyful lighting of candles to celebrate the festival of lights.
festival of lights
pumpkin bisque, apple latkes
rarely converging
Some rabbinical sources have calculated the next convergence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will not be for 70,000 years!! Even our trees may not survive that long. But, according to the New York Times, “the last time the two holidays overlapped was in 1918, when Jews lit one menorah candle on Thanksgiving night, and it won’t happen again until Nov. 27, 2070.” Others chime in with other dates!
Mathematicians disagree with both the religious sources and the New York Times, and they assert this particular convergence has never happened before (except maybe once in 1888 before they made Thanksgiving the 4th Thursday of November) and may never happen again, and that’s because Hanukkah is a day earlier than the New York Times article provides, given that the first day will be celebrated the night before Thanksgiving. That means Hanukkah starts before Thanksgiving! Whew!
once in a lifetime
celebrate the convergence
remember the past
This fairy tale writer doesn’t know who to believe, the rabbis, the New York Times or the mathematicians. Whether you believe it will happen again in 57 years or maybe never, why not light some candles, roast some turkey with challah stuffing, fry up some potato pancakes, and celebrate a rarer occurrence than a comet sighting or a lunar eclipse.
I may not live long enough to see the next round of Yarmulke-wearing Turkeys (especially if it never happens again), but if I do, what a fairy tale that would be. We should all be so lucky!
Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Turkey Day, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Thanksgivukkah! Each year after this, as the leaves flame up and fall, crisped and brown, I will remember this special gateway to winter, the first Thanksgiving of my blogging days.
A few recipe ideas for a creative Thanksgiving and Hanukkah feast:
Turkey with Pomegranate and Walnuts
Pumpkin and Saffron Soup
Cheddar cheese mashed potatoes
Apple Latkes
cooking for hours
table groans with fall delights
eaten in minutes
Warmly, Brenda
Note: a haībun is prose followed by a poem, often a haiku. Sometimes haiku or other poems are also used as transitions between paragraphs. Usually I write from a prompt, and I always enjoy that, but this week I wanted to celebrate outside the prompt. I may go back and write another haībun for the prompt, if I can squeeze out the time.
Transformation Haiku
leaves nearly all down
limbs catch stars like fireflies
ermine cloak coming
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
[Ian] Pine Cone
Here’s a new friend, publishing magical poems coupled with adorable photographs. Hope you like this little gem as much as I do!! Have a terrific Tuesday!! Brenda
tiny Christmas tree
perfectly sized for pixies
yuletide miniature
Raindrop Haiku
rain gathers into drops
leaves sag with sky’s liquid weight
forming opal tears
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Icy Leaf Haiku
Too early for ice!
Breath comes in steam engine puffs
Leaf caught by winter
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Business Trip Haiku
goodbye jet airplane
carrying Daddy away
come back, come back soon
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Seasons of the Sun Haībun
When the summer sun shines, blinding me with its full radiance, the pleasure is painfully exquisite. If I bask too long, my sunburn is a long, slow torment, my body retaining the summer’s heat for days. Yet that same hot summer sun provides the energy for all the food we eat, makes the world a vibrant beautiful place.
hot reckless summer
sun provides food for tree leaves
blessed saving shade
In the autumn, the sun’s strength has diminished, and its power to blind and burn has faded with the earth’s turning. The leaves mourn with me, turning all the colors of the earth from the loss of that unrelenting brilliance. A cool morning is made a delight, sitting by the lake, soaking up the remaining heat, with no fear of sunburn.
a bench in the sun
light glints on still lake water
sun warms cold morning
Fall warmth has to last through the dark days of winter, when the sky can turn gray with snow for days in a row. The weak winter sun cannot burn through snow clouds, and instead sends a diffuse light leaking through. After the clouds break, the fresh fallen snow can magnify the sunlight into a thousand knives, piercing my eyes with a painful overload. Crossing a field after a snowfall, the light forces my eyes to thin slits, tears seeping and freezing on my cheeks.
boots sink in new snow
icy wind curls under scarf
eyes shut from white fire
Spring finds moderation again, without the piercing light reflected by the winter white, without the intense burning of the summer sun. The whole world bursts forth in bloom, bulbs shooting forth their starbursts of color and myself shedding clothing layers. Spring sunlight is an invitation, a benediction, a renewing from the universe.
starshine gently falls
magic balm to the cold earth
life springs up dancing
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This post was inspired by the Ligo Haībun challenge by Ese, who offered a Mexican proverb: It is not enough to know how to ride – you must also know how to fall. This proverb reminded me of autumn, the leaves falling after a summer of riding the sunshine; life in its eternal circle; the earth circling; the sun in its seasons.
Golden Path Etheree
Leaf
Falling,
Citrine dream.
Windy swirling,
Gold honey blizzard,
Swirls of a fairy’s cloak.
Restless spirits soar higher
With each dancing leaf falling down
To the shifting, shadowy hemline.
Surfeit of beauty looking at fall’s gown.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This poem is an Etheree, starting with one syllable on the first line and increasing to ten, one syllable per line.
Friendly Fairy Tales 