Friday, December 27, 2013

[the moon and the morning star . . .]

the moon
and the morning star
side by side
throughout the winter night
. . . if we could travel so 



Fire Pearls 2June 2013

Saturday, December 21, 2013

[the shortest day . . .]

a scattering of birds
          driven by wind
                  across an empty sky
the minutes
          of the shortest day 




Bamboo Hut 1: 1, August 2013

Friday, December 13, 2013

silver moon fish and a runnel of starlight

silver moon fish
dancing on the pond’s
dark eye—
this need to shift my gaze
when the wind is up


A Hundred Gourds 2:3, June 2013


after seasons
of searching the world
for the axis mundi—
this runnel of starlight
down my spine

A Hundred Gourds 2:4, Sept. 2013

Friday, December 6, 2013

"I Know Where I Must Go"

On her knees, she scrubs floors by day, paints all night in a candlelit garret.  From some whirling nexus beyond her ken, flowers, fruits and leaves flow from her fingers onto canvas. Form and color rise up and dance.

oxblood,
candlewax, and herbs--
she extracts
essential pigments
from her narrow world

Starving while war boils around her, still she paints the stained-glass gardens of her soul. Someday her paintings will be exhibited in Paris and New York—yet Seraphine Louis will spend her last years in a madhouse.

visions and voices
from another realm—
an eye
embedded in the tree
of life


Haibun Today 7: 4, December 2013


Click here to learn more about  Seraphine Louis and see some of her paintings, including L'Arbe du Paradis, which is mentioned in the second tanka.