crocus embracing,
offering nectar to bees
tickling, tiny feet
petals dancing with laughter
honey blossoms with flavor
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: Tanka is defined in Oak Leak Tanka. Please feel free to add your haiku or tanka here, if you are moved to join in. 🙂 In the past, Japanese poets would alternative haiku (3 lines, 5/7/5 syllables) with two 7/7 lines, playing off each other’s work. It’s fun, if you want to try.
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.
April Fools! We had hail, sleet and rain yesterday: what the weather professionals call a “wintry mix.” I prefer my wintery mix to include a fire in the fireplace, hot chocolate, a foot rub and my dinner delivered by the culinarily gifted. I wonder if that will ever happen. At least the pizza place delivers. 🙂
Here are some brave early flowers, just poking up their heads and drinking some rain. The oak trees have started dropping leaves, and new green leaves are sure to be along any day. Warmth and sunlight are predicted, but who knows if the weather professions are just joking or serious.
Have a fun First!
Warmly, Brenda
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: For any not familiar with the U.S.A. April First tradition, I will explain. The goal is to get someone to believe something diabolical, and wait for them to interject: “What!?!” Then you yell “April Fool’s!!” And laugh a lot while they groan.
past barren trees
path leads toward evergreens,
spring in infancy
earth still hard from winter’s cold
pine needles soften, endure
tender green shoots
entwined with fall memories
struggle toward sunshine
dream of golden summer warmth
tiger lily hearts leaping
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: These two tanka are inspired by the Carpe Diem Haiku Kai,
and I dedicate them to Kristjaan, on the birth of his new grandchild.
blue dormancy
bitter winter winds cease
lavender in March
HAIKU INVITATION! Please feel free to leave your own haiku here, in the comments, to celebrate spring and the tenacity of all creatures who survive the bitter winds of winter. So much more could be said, perhaps by you!
Note: The photograph is a visual haiku: a photograph suggesting more than is there. In this case, the photograph made me think of the tenacity of life, to go dormant, slumber throughout the cold, and then wake to sunshine and spring. Another Visual Haiku is at Come and Gone.
The fairies have been busy.
Under the deepest snow,
They have sprinkled vernal equinox sparkles,
And everywhere spring is springing!
Irises Hear Spring’s Song
Hyacinths Yearn toward the Sun
Crocuses Create a Green Crescendo
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Silka dreamed in yellow. Daffodil dreams of spring, warm breezes blowing citron pollen. Leaves unfurl in lemon sunshine. She restlessly rolled over, drawing her rose petal duvet higher over one curved hip. Her dream changed to tulips, in a rainbow of color.
Silka dreamed of the Equinox, and her thoughts startled her awake. She opened her violet eyes.
“Fib!” she called into the quiet of her hydrangea bower. She heard a scuffling, yawning, and a small bee fairy uncurled from a purple bloom, changing from bee shape to fairy shape as he stretched. He sat up blinking, wings glittering.
“What’s today, Fib?” Silka called to him, smoothing her butterfly wings and petal skirt.
“Today?” Fib rubbed the grit from his bluebell eyes, then he opened them wide in surprise. “The Equinox!!” Fib shouted with joy. Together, he and Silka flew out into the Outer World.
Still snow as far as the eye could see. A faded hydrangea bloom, like a fragile four leaf clover spun of earth, was the only visible bloom, their hydrangea bower safely behind the veil separating the Fairy World from the Outer World.
Silka and Fib decided, equinox or no equinox, some more dreaming was in order, and they retreated behind the veil.
If you like, you can read more Fae Flash Fiction here: Silka (Episode 1).
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
The sun is shining,
Clouds dispersing,
Snow is melting,
Hearts are singing!
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Life is a fairy tale! Have a great weekend!!
Warmly, Brenda
Silka dreamed of spring, her inner eye seeing sunny days burgeoning with flowers. She could not quite bring them into focus. She donned her favorite dress, her flower jewels, and picked up her fairy dust. Bravely, she zipped outside.
Spring had not arrived. After the dim fairy bower, her eyes watered in the sunlight. After she rubbed them, she saw thousands of snow crystals glinting like jewels in a dusting of fresh powder. She admired tunnels dug into deep snow banks.
She shivered. The cold made her feel tired. She saw messages from the universe.
“Even in winter, if you look for them, you find messages of love,” she smiled to herself. She waved goodbye to the cold, another week of dreaming and dozing sounded ideal. She retreated into her fairy bower, where flowers thrived in the warmth of her magic. She settled onto her bed of rose petals, ate a honey and nectar bon bon and settled down to await spring, closing her violet eyes.
Click for Free Coloring Page of Silka the Fairy
Copyright Brenda Davis Harsham
Cherubs by Michelangelo, Courtesy of Samui Art
Yesterday I walked gingerly over a six-inch thick sheet of ice to close my garage door. Slowly I turned back across it to my car, eager to pick up my daughter from preschool. I thought with hostility of ice, winter, and arctic temperatures, while I fumbled with my gloves, even though I did not fall.
Then I thought about thinking itself, where had those negative thoughts come from? I remembered how a fresh dusting of snow glints in the sunlight, how much fun my boys had digging snow tunnels and forts and I remembered sledding and hot chocolate. I smiled and felt immeasurably happier. I remembered my joy when the first flakes fell. I decided to view the last days of winter cheerfully. Spring is coming soon, and then winter will be a delight to look forward to again. Now where had those thoughts come from?
When I was in my teen years, my thoughts were often dark. I read horror, murder mysteries and psycho suspense with gusto, imagining death, blood and gore without flinching. I rarely gave any space to positive thoughts, except for some vague idea that my life would be better when I was on my own.
monsters within
words spilling blood
monsters without
My own life seemed cheap, all things absurd, all cultural mores without depth or meaning, all of us caught in a spider web of habits developed by people long dead. Pointless.
How did I get from there to here, where negative thoughts are automatically balanced by positive ones and my mind achieves serenity? I no longer dwell in the dark places or give voice to angst, betrayal and pain, despite treading water in it for years.
I had an epiphany. I’m not sure I should share it. Things that are too simple are often confused with the simple-minded. And yet, simple is the curve of a throat that make you catch your breath. Simple is a blue sky after a storm, the sun reflecting in all the wet places. Simple is ice in the summer or a warm hand when yours is icy.
If you are still reading, you may wonder what my epiphany was. In that case, I will tell you: I control my own thoughts. That’s it. No matter how dark, or scary or hurtful others are, they cannot control my thoughts unless I let them. I can look for beauty and good memories, and focus on those, letting the rest go. So I did, every time the negative thoughts came, I used mental muscle to shove them aside and substitute positive ones. Over time, the initial herculean effort became an easy, automatic one.
I came home from picking up my daughter, stepped onto the ice, and BAM, slammed into the trash bin, so thoughtfully provided by my city sanitation department. My first thought: that wasn’t so bad. Next thought: OWWW!!! That thought lasted longer than I like to remember, but eventually my well-trained brain found happy thoughts again: I’m so glad I didn’t break anything. At least my daughter won’t have to risk walking over it. My driving is done for the day. I can go lie down for half an hour. Spring is coming.
clouds part
rays of sunshine push through
contemplate joy
Inspired by Michelangelo, Haibun Thinking Prompt #7 and Samui Art.
Fairy satellite dishes —
Hibiscus dishes — bring wishes,
Bored fairy wing swishes.
Then she hears a message from Queen Mab.
Fairy Della no longer sad and drab —
Delighted with the urgent mission,
Della hurries with an exciting frisson:
She has the spring fairy ball to plan.
She must hide the location from man.
Della has more spring in her step
And joy in the plan kept.
Counting on fingers — only 20 days left.
All the fairies are humming,
Woo-hoo, spring is coming!!
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
A little rhyming inspired by Dr. Seuss
whose birthday is coming tomorrow I’ve heard. The title is a nod to his Ish Wish Dish. 🙂
purple trumpets joyfully welcome spring, frantic sunshine music
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This is my second ever American Haiku. I still have a few posts left to make from my warm vacation. Tomorrow we have a snowstorm due. 🙂 The American Haiku or American Sentence form was created by Allen Ginsberg, who brought it away from nature toward our modern, urban lifestyle and left it high and dry on one line, as more similar to the original haiku form, which was not broken into lines. My first is Silent Bathhouse.
Friendly Fairy Tales 