poetry

orchid

orchidweb

The poetry of Japan has its seeds in the human heart and mind and grows into the myriad leaves of words. Because people experience many different phenomena in this world, they express that which they think and feel in their hearts in terms of all that they see and hear. A nightingale singing among the blossoms, the voice of a pond-dwelling frog–listening to these, what living being would not respond with his own poem? It is poetry which effortlessly moves the heavens and earth, awakens the world of invisible spirits to deep feeling, softens the relationship between men and women, and consoles the hearts of fierce warriors.

~Ki no Tsurayuki, (preface Kosinsbū, ca. 905)

autumn with basho

Will you turn toward me?

I am lonely too,

this autumn evening.

~Basho (F. Bowers, The Classic Traditions of Haiku)

autumn

I felt compelled to update this earlier post to invite you to visit LdG luciledegodoy  who earlier noted my image inspired her to post a photograph she created a few days ago. I invite you to hop on over to visit her post and while there listen to Eva Cassidy’s wondrous voice and the story of her life.

autumn’s twilight

Going through the gate

I also am a wander

this twilight in autumn

~Buson (Y Sawa & E Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson)
sunburtstIt began that first Halloween in Des Moines, Iowa, when I found myself wondering if the ghost, goblins, and witches that appeared at my door were also messaging the onset of seasonal changes.  It was that year as my daughter’s Halloween costume was atop layers of clothing and hidden by a winter coat, I first noticed–and then again during later years in Wyoming and Colorado–that Halloween is often accompanied by a significant drop in temperature that generally lasted well into spring.

Today, the November 1, 2017 edition of Aljazeera reported that while Halloween is not recognized outside the western world “the date is climatologically significant in that it ends the three-month climatological autumn. Figures will now be confirmed and compared, by climatological statisticians, with autumn seasons from previous years.”

Additionally, at the end of October:

The Indian monsoon withdraws to the tip of India and Sri Lanka and the second cyclone season begins in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. The Australian cyclone season officially begins.

Both Australia and South Africa have seen particularly stormy spring seasons and are settling now into summer.

China has entered its winter season with the northeast monsoon now prevalent. In the United States, the last few days of October brought some proper snow to the northern states.

Northern Europe has been battered by a windstorm followed by a big drop in temperature. The system responsible is still covering Belarus in snow. Western Europe, and in particular Iberia, is yet to realise the change of season.

Sometimes one’s private musings do have a bit of merit.