Ten Views of the Moon

 (haiku)

1.

harvest moon

great wheel riding the sky

keeps pace with us

2.

the moon’s face

smiled in through my window

all my childhood

3.

stormy moon

on a wild ride half-glimpsed

through shadowy clouds

4.

I’m with Omar:

Ah, moon of my delight

that knows no wane!

5.

after the night 

I keep within me the moon’s

persistent light 

6.

morning –

the moon sinks from the sky

into the sea 

7.

dark night –

without that bright face

I’m lonely 

8.

full moon

in a ring of clouds

gazing back 

9.

daylight moon

ethereal as cloud

ghostly on blue

10.

the moon –

even in a sliver

fully present

This came from an exercise: to write 10 haiku about the moon, then remove the word 'moon' everywhere and craft a new poem from what remains. I did, but I liked this haiku sequence better than my final poem. 

(NB: The plural of 'haiku' is 'haiku'.)

Sharing (off-prompt) with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #215 .

yesterday ...

 

yesterday

was Remembrance Day –

I forgot

The Fall of the Leaf

 

Away in the Northern Hemisphere, the leaves are falling (I am reminded online) – leaves of gorgeous reds and yellows. In temperate Tasmania, where I grew up, sometimes, in some places, we saw such colours in Autumn, on trees introduced by the early European settlers. Here, now, in the sunny sub-tropics, my final settling-place, we seldom see anything but evergreens. I don’t mind that; I love the sun! And I love to be surrounded by all-year greenery, in this sweet rural town where trees line the roads and even the most urban streets.

In the Southern Hemisphere, we have Spring right now. One of the few deciduous tropical trees, the big frangipani that spreads all over the front wall of my home, has been starkly bare all winter (after its huge brown leaves littered the lawn; nothing pretty about them). Now it quietly begins to revive, putting forth tiny, spiky shoots at the ends of a few branches. I look forward to the fragrant flowers which will come.

ageing, slowing

I watch the seasons renew –

how much longer?

Written for Haibun: "The Fall of the Leaf"  at dVerse.

'I Labour by Singing Light'

 (DylanThomas: ‘In My Craft or Sullen Art’.)

Well yes, Dylan, mate, I suppose it is a labour. We can spend hours getting it all just right, or as right as we can (seldom quite perfect). Even more so than prose: not only every word needing to be the right one and in the right place, but every piece of punctuation – every blooming space, when we’re writing free verse. The crafting, indeed.

It’s true. It is our work. THE work, whatever else we may do to feed ourselves and keep a roof overhead. Yet it feels like play: the most absorbing and delightful play. When I’m most deeply involved, ‘I’ disappear; there is only writing. This is what I exist for. And, as you say, we do it regardless of ‘praise or wages’ (or, very much more often, their lack).

I’m with you, too, about that singing light, ‘when only the moon rages’. The moon has always been my muse. As a child, I used to gaze on her for hours through my high, uncurtained bedroom window: a presence both magical and reassuring. I began writing poems when I was seven. 

A natural night owl – as well as, for many years, otherwise occupied during my days (studies, employment, child raising ...) – I have usually worked on my poems late at night, with the moon looking in at me through a window. It still happens; although now, old and widowed, I can organise my time as I like.

 

Once, when my adult son visited, I said to him as he was heading for bed, ‘I might stay up awhile and do some writing.’

‘Try to keep the surprises to a minimum,’ he said, straight-faced. I stared at him blankly.

‘Mum!’ he said, ‘You’ve been doing that as long as I’ve known you.’ 

September moon –

lighting my desk each night

in slow waxing

Written for Haibun Monday 9-1-25: Labor at dVerse.

('In My Craft or Sullen Art', which Frank Tassone quoted as part of this prompt, has long been one of my favourite poems.)

Shining Silver

 

Is it something about being a witch? For my jewellery, I have always preferred silver to gold. I notice many witches do. After all, it goes so well with black! (That’s a joke. Witches don’t really dress only in black.)

We do all love the silvery moon. (Gold is the colour of the sun.)

 

My favourite silver earrings are odd – a pentacle in one ear, a Scorpio sign in the other. They were meant to be pendants, but I replaced the chains with hooks. (A pentacle is a five-pointed star within a circle. In America – I found out when I was there – they call that a pentagram. No-one knew what I meant when I said ‘pentacle’! We’re not exactly in disagreement, but elsewhere we say ‘pentagram’ to mean only the five-pointed star with no surrounding circle.)

I used to wear many rings. Since COVID, with all that hand sanitising, I mostly wear only two, one on each forefinger. They are silver rings with no stones. They sit quite flat, you see. (They bind me to two pantheons. One is a Celtic knot, the other a scarab.)

‘Gold glows,’ says my friend who is not a witch, to explain why she prefers it. I tell her, ‘Silver shines.’

winter dark –

the waning moon

a silver sliver

Written for dVerse Haibun Monday: Silver

Also sharing with Poets and Storytellers United for FridayWritings #190: Summerween! Summerween is a summer version of Halloween. I didn't write to this optional prompt, but I'm at least sharing something witchy. (Smile.)

Problems in My Paradise

  

I want that plant which purifies air. Don’t talk to me about clove oil for mould; it’s toxic to cats. (Yes, mould is toxic too, but it will do us in slower.) There’s nowhere close to find the plant. It’s classed as a weed. Then a local woman on facebook advertises a whole lot she’s giving away. I don’t even wait to put on make-up or a bra. 

I wonder if I’ll be able to find the place. Just as I step in the car it starts to rain. ‘I’m having an adventure,’ I tell myself. 

daring –

driving anywhere new

at my age

I choose the smaller box, more than enough for my tiny space.

‘Will you have help the other end?’ she asks me. I say a cheery no. 

‘What will you do? Take a bit at a time?’ 

‘Something like that.’ And it is what I do: piece by piece out the back, one-handed, holding on to walls and railings as I go.

Enough! I’m proud of myself. I go indoors for a coffee.

Next day my cleaner comes. I tell him I’d like some planting this time, instead of mopped and vacuumed floors. He’s willing. Soon I have a row of tall, mottled leaves standing up like spears against the back fence. 

People on facebook warn me it’s invasive. But that garden bed is edged with wooden slats, boxed in. Besides, this is just to keep it all alive until I can get some pots and potting mix. I need the stuff inside the house! 

The cleaner sweeps my back veranda too, and washes down the pavers that cross the yard. 

satisfaction –

directing operations

others perform

Friends tell me it has wonderfully strange names. I look up Wikipedia. Snake plant, Saint George’s sword, mother-in-law’s tongue, viper’s bowstring hemp … 

Oh-oh! I discover this too is toxic to cats! I’ll have to buy an air purifier instead. Meanwhile – oh well – I wanted easy-care plants in my garden. I’ve got them now.

a little knowledge –

I introduce snake plant

into the garden

Asked for haiku ...

 

asked for haiku

over morning coffee –

brain tries to wake

(does a senryu count?)

Someone somewhere has declared this (April 17) Haiku Day.

Busy writing a poem a day this April for NaPoWriMo, as well as launching a new book plus a re-issue of an old one – rather than writing anything else new, I offer this one (off-prompt) for Friday Writings #173 at Poets and Storytellers United. Well it IS new, in response to Haiku Day, but it's also short, LOL. (The prompt at P&SU is 'Youth has no age'. Maybe this little thing says, rather, that age has no youth! *Sigh.*)