God has His favorites:
we now who mourn,
the orphan and widow,
those lost in the storm,
unloved, unadored
by kindness withheld.
All promptings ignored,
the moments repelled.
“Lord, when did we see you,”
abandoned, unstrung?
We straddle two worlds.
Where do we belong?
Kingdom without us.
Kingdom within.
Kingdom of Jesus.
Kingdom, begin…
Photo is in the public domain.
A surprise spoken word of my poem, Not What, by Elizabeth to commemorate her beloved father’s birthday on April 27. Please visit her website to listen and to appreciate all her literary offerings.
Rebecca Budd has yet again honored me by reading a recent poem. Visit her blog and enjoy her enthusiasm for literature. She always revives mine. We appreciate your love, Lady Budd aka Clanmother! https://rebeccasreadingroom.ca
Who spoke into being
lily, sparrow,
redwood tree
and galaxies?
Who lavishes light
upon our eyes
and deepens shadow
for rest at night?
Who cries out wisdom,
the way of love?
Who liberates
the heart with law?
Who calls each one
by our secret name
that none but Him
has ever heard?
Who is and has
the first and last?
Not what, but who.
Undying Word
Photo of Triangulum Galaxy (M33) by NASA/Hubble
Fathers in nature
Fathers who sing
Fathers by nature
Fathers unsung
Unknown fathers
Absent fathers
Abusive fathers
Patient fathers
Founding fathers
Church fathers
Fathers of faith
Foundling fathers
Father of Light
Father of the Son
Father always with me
Our Father, the One
Children imitating cormorants
are even more wonderful
than cormorants.
Don’t worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.
Mother I never knew,
every time I see the ocean,
every time—
These haiku are among my favorites by Issa. Robert Hass, author of The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson, & Issa, (HarperCollins, 1994) is an excellent editor and translator. Background material for each poet is so comprehensive, I’m walking and observing alongside them. Every precious moment and memory feels familiar, whether I’ve experienced them or not. It’s comforting to know not every haiku they wrote was great.
Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) “. . . has been described as a Whitman or Neruda in miniature, probably because his poems teem with creaturely life. . . His main English translator, a Scot, compares him to Robert Burns. . . And in other ways Issa’s sensibility resembles that of Charles Dickens—the humor and pathos, the sense of a childhood wound, the willingness to be silly and downright funny, and the fierceness about injustice.”
Neotropic cormorants by Alan D. Wilson @ Nature’s Pics Online
Red-winged blackbirds warn,
trilling shrill they guard fledglings
Beaks strafe my gray head!
Photograph by Nature’s Pics Online
Cottonwood fluffs down
on juicy grass and clover
Winter in June masque
Photos above were taken with a phone during a recent walk and inspired by Timothy Price, Off Center and Not Even.
Field of bright mustard,
the moon in the east,
the sun in the west.
Yosa Buson (1716-1783) was equally esteemed as a great poet and painter. Initially I misread one of my favorites as saying ‘moon in the west’ and ‘sun in the east.’ I thought his bright yellow field was illuminated by moonset and sunrise. Buson actually described the field beneath a sunset in the west and a moonrise in the east; equally ethereal and otherworldly. I’ve seen both phenomena but not the field of mustard plants in glorious bloom. Until now.
Light emanates from all three—the mustard flowers, the moon, and the sun—and paints an inimitable image unlikely photographed anywhere. Nevertheless Buson painted with words and thus elicited such a moment. I was unable to find a photograph to illustrate its splendor, obviously. These two great lights trading their soft brilliance on opposite horizons and revealing the self-glowing, allegorical mustard seed are painted with a palette of words.
Haiku translated by Robert Hass, The Essential HAIKU: Versions of Bashō, Buson & Issa, HarperCollins, 1994
Photograph found @ Pixabay
I’m stopped by roses
—still in our house, you suffer—
their carefree beauty
Photograph from Wilson Public Rose Gardens, North Carolina
THE WOUND THAT HEALS 
You must be logged in to post a comment.