In a new WordPress post created for this week’s challenge, share a picture that says CHANGE
one strand of hair
entangled in a hairbrush
a telling – of age
The Brook
First time I passed the brook
it filled my eye.
The second time
it was a tiny snake.
The next few times
I only heard it cry
Behind me – I was afraid
for my own sake. ~G Burce Bunao
In branches dense
with cicadas’ drone —
one autumn leaf ~Shohaku
This week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge is all about Road of any type as long as the road is visible … streets of Dublin, Ireland
On, on I travel
Though I fall and die, let it be
In fields of clover ~Sora*
Along this road
going with no one
autumn evening ~Basho
Shinano road —
how many nights now
that moon on the eves? ~Issa
*cited in:
The Narrow Road to Oku
Matsuo Basho
Trans: Donald Keene
A short night
wakes me from a dream
that seemed so long ~Yayo
My personal musings escort me along paths of existence that often are, for others, unknown dimensions of imaginative conclusions
More haze
than the sky could hold?
Today’s rain ~ Oka Kosetsu*
cited in:
Haiku Before Haiku
trans: Steven D. Carter
young sparrows, get out of the way!
get out of the way!
a great horse is coming by! ~Issa*
—
come play with me!
You, little sparrow
motherless sparrow! ~Issa*
*cited in:
The Classic Tradition of Haiku
Ed: Faubion Bowers
This week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge is: circles and curves
just myself
also, one fly
– an enormous house ~ Issa*
*cited in:
Inch by Inch
Trans: Nanao Sakaki
Is my mind elsewhere
Or has it simply not sung?
Hototogisu
~Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693)*
Weekly Photo Challenge: A Day in My Life. Another multi-photo challenge! Make sure you include picture captions to explain to people what they’re seeing, and experiment with the tiled galleries.
*Hototogisu, translated as cuckoo, wood thrush and sometimes nightingale.
The bird’s song is a strong but mournful cry.
It is said to die after singing 8,008 times.
It is also known as the “bird of time,”
“messenger of death” and “bird of disappointed love,”
and flies back and forth from this world to the next.
Confucian axiom: If one’s mind is elsewhere, one will look but not see, listen but not hear
cited in:
The Classic Tradition of Haiku
Edited by: Faubion Bowers
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape–the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show. ~Andrew Wyeth*
Snow yet remaining
The evening slopes are misty –
An evening in spring. ~Iio Sogi**
cited in:
*John Connolly, The Wrath of Angels
**Faubion Bowers, The Classic Tradition of Haiku
Dear Larry,
as the winter winds travel across Wyoming’s landscape
the swirling snow releases its memories of you, lost upon Casper Mountain
its frigid touch awakens me to imagine your
aloneness in that wilderness of blinding snow
cries, deafened by the river of winds,
calling out in hope for
a human form to emerge out of the whiteness
the warmth of a human hand
the sound of a voice, comforting you
to accompany you home.
as I become lost within this winter’s swirling thoughts
the river winds tear into my soul
releasing tears arising from
the darkness of grief’s aloneness, seeking
a knowing to emerge out of ignorance’s darkness
you found peace
within a loving presence
that embraced you
and accompanied you home –
until then may refuge be found within the nature of things.
toddler shoes in an antique store
Touching the present moment, we come to know the past created the present and together the future is being created. ~ Unknown
shoe lace I
Just as you unreel the thread from a spool,
I want the past to become present.
shoe lace II
The wife of Yoshitsune, a famous warrior in medieval Japan, wrote this farewell poem shortly after her spouse was deployed to the northern provinces where he later died. She offers to us our creative ability to mentally bring the past alive and into the present.
shoe lace III
… “Time goes from present to past.” This is not true in our logical mind, but it is in the actual experience of making past time present. There we have poetry, and there we have human life.
~ cited in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki
shoe lace IV
with each lightening flash,
each roll of thunder, rice and
the world grow richer
—
seen in a flash
of lightening, the riverbed
looks utterly dead*
wyoming sky
*cited in:
The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku Kobayashi Issa,
trans: Sam Hamill
a meditative journey 
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