Haiku – 20091103

 

faded autumn leaves
falling into the whirlwind
race by in moon light

 

 

Summertime Reflections

on September 1st, 1985, my wife, daughter, and friends joined me on a short journey to Haverhill, Massachusetts to the homestead of John Greenleaf Whittier. if you are familiar with this early american poet, the following will make sense to you:

we took a ride to visit his homestead
the poet i read while laying in bed

we saw his house, the small desk and chair
the poems i read, he wrote sitting there

we saw his fireplace and felt the glow
remembering Snowbound shut-in by snow

hung on the wall was a red riding hood
left behind by love we have understood

my wife found an acorn under a tree
now as i hold it the homestead i see

well on August 15, 2009, saturday, before noon,  after reading from Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, i thought it would be interesting to spend the afternoon being tourists around the Haverhill, Massachusetts area, while imagining the summers of long ago that may have influenced John Greenleaf Whittier to translate into poetry.

Well, traveling in Southern Maine and Coastal New Hampshire, with temperatures hovering around 90 degrees, we decided to turn westbound, get something to eat, then head back to Southern Maine. traveling on interstate highways are scenic to a point and the RampVan air conditioning was working well, but today was too hot to play follow the leader in erratic traffic.

comparing the image on this post with the few verses of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Dream, i’ll let you decide if traveling with the stop and go traffic patterns of restless families heading to ocean beaches before some of them reach their boiling point. the northbound lanes were backed up for MILES!

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” 2.1. 249-256:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamelled skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

Haiku – 20090418

ancient woodlands with
the fragrance of spring flowers
wisdom of nature

Dawning 2009 Haiku

great expectations
i can feel the winds of hope
a dawning new world

Winter of the North Haiku

winter of the north

on long days and nights of cold

your smile warms my soul

Winter Rain Outdoors Tanka

winter rain outdoors
thinking of franconia notch
with thoughts of long ago
native american foot paths
on bright sunny autumn days

Bittersweet Memory

Bittersweet Memory

A young man in a woolen coat of red,
Snowshoes, walking stick, and pulling a sled
Across the deep snow to mountain range
Here in the city I seem mighty strange.

I’m living in the city to make my mark
And the fullness of nature seems so dark
And how far away I begin to feel
Bittersweet memory my soul must heal.

I can see forest of mountains and streams
Looking back into the freshness of dreams
A life with nature, animals, and birds
All given up for money, deeds, and words.

Inspiration seen in a frozen land
Is having a small bird eat from your hand
Inspiration that last without a cost
Bittersweet memory never be lost.

Note (2008)

Refection: during daily commuting to and from the office one particular winter season of 1998, after living in the city for 28 years. Now, 38 years later, I still work in the city and someday in the near future look forward to living somewhere in the southwestern USA.

The pure white snow from an early winter storm had been plowed into high banks along both sides of the highway. Piles of pure white snow splashed with road salt, brown gravel, and sprinkled with trash, trash tossed out windows by commuter, those commuters who could care less about the beautiful earth they live in. Pure white snow banks now ugly brown and nasty – sprinkled with trash. Sigh!

The pangs and thoughts of nostalgia, when a young able bodied boy living in the northwestern mountains of Maine, took me to the pure white snow filled wilderness I knew so well.