nature’s pulse (haibun)

This morning I read this prompt hoping to have inspiration for the entire day. My intention was to write something later in the week after my work shift late in the night.  But, the words of our host, Chèvrefeuille already teased my muse that I had to write something before I left for work.

We are inspired by a beautiful poem by Rumi:

We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.
We are as pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely!
Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
that we should remain in being beside thee?
We and our existences are really non-existence;
thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable.
We all are lions, but lions on a banner:
because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.
Their onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen:
may that which is unseen not fail from us!
Our wind whereby we are moved and our being are of thy gift;
our whole existence is from thy bringing into being.
© Rumi

Our host says:

[“What has this to do with the poem for today? Well … what can I say? In the peom of today Rumi is speaking about “existence” and with that came my “revalation” to tell you a little bit about existentialism, because that was the first thing I thought about. Maybe that’s just a coincedence, because I am reading Nietzsche’s “Also Sprach Zarathustra” at the moment, one of Nietzsche’s most famous works. And existence triggered me to look at existentialism …¸”

our host has written  a beautiful haiku in response to this theme:

a game of chess
played in the shadow of lion banners –
the wind unseen

© Chèvrefeuille

This reminded me when I chant in the spring, summer and autumn, I seem to see the trees, flowers and grass responding to my words as I walk.  Here is my contribution to this post:

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©Clr’17 le Richelieu

nature’s pulse (haibun)

Being a water sign she has always felt closely related to the water. As a teenager, she remembers writing an essay about swimming on Lake Champlain where she spent many summers in Vermont. But this time, she did not swim across to the point of the island to rest on the floating pier. This time, she just swam until she could no longer keep her head above water and her favourite mode of swimming was under water. In her essay, she writes how she gets close to the fish, the rocks the discarded bottle at the bottom of the lake. The fish swim past her but some swim along her and she becomes one with the water. 

 

The naïve part of the essay was that she let herself drown. She was too young to realize that she didn’t have to drown to be part of the water and nature. She knows now when she is sailing on a catamaran, she is part of the wind with her jib, with the hull, part of the swell of the water.

 

Just as when she swam underwater, she is part of more than the water, even when she is sitting on a rock by the riverside she is part of the trees and the sun that dries her cheeks…

 

by the riverside
water splashes on her feet
minnows delight

rumble of rapids
gulls’ screaming – emotions freed
to her heartbeat
cascading with intention
spilling over dams

©Tournesol’17/03/07

Carpe Diem Haiku Kai 

Daily moments – reflections of nature’s pulse, March 7 2017