They walked along the riverside silently. Occasionally he would put his arm around her waist making sure she did not trip over the mounds on the grass. This would be there last time on the property. So many years passed. So many memories. A lifetime of giggles, squeals and splashing, crying and shouting echo on the water like a thousand and one ghosts. She turns her head slightly to look at her lifetime mate.
liquid blues gaze once upon a lifetime her heart still flip flops
Saying goodbye can be so painful and that is what she did at the train station this evening. Idle chatter filled their last hour sitting on the platform waiting for the train. When the whistle blew, LAST CALL…they both stopped talking. They stared at each other for the longest two minutes without exchanging one word. Their eyes searched into each other’s soul, trying to transcribe those heavy thoughts. Their eyes swam in painful puddles…tears rolling down their cheeks…still, not a word.
The train’s engine started up and they simply hugged each other tightly for a brief moment and he picked up his valise and turned towards the train, never looking back.
Rather than take a cab home, she decided to walk the 10 kilometre passage on foot.
piercing emptiness tearing at her heart tears spill from heaven
Whenever she feels mystical shifts in her mind’s eye she simply allows images to tell their own story.Dusting off old narratives, a surge of waves of old and new dance together playing “catch-me-if-can” until they marry and lock onto a fresh canvas waiting for the artist’s inspiration…
thoughts linger
draped in cobwebs
quieting the mind
thoughts linger
weightless joy
makes her smile
draped in cobwebs
secrets of the night
lie in wait
quieting the mind
rhythmic waves
reaching nirvana
~
Aw the mind! offers such sweet passages to explore
I had started to research and drafted a post for this prompt but that was two days ago and pfffft, I lost it all. Returning to the drawing board, I found a poem by Issa Kobayashi who I truly love his work. His last line in haiku often end with a nice surprise and sometimes with a bit of humour. I am sharing some of his bio here that I found at the Poetry Foundation:
”
Kobayashi Issa
1763–1828
Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa, also known as Kobayashi Yataro and Kobayashi Nobuyuki, was born in Kashiwabara, Shinanao province. He eventually took the pen name Issa, which means “cup of tea” or, according to poet Robert Hass, “a single bubble in steeping tea.”
Issa’s father was a farmer. His mother died when he was young, and he was raised by his grandmother. His father remarried, and Issa did not get along well with his stepmother or stepbrother, eventually becoming involved in disputes over his father’s property. When Issa was 14, he left home to study haiku in Edo. He spent years traveling and working until returning to Kashiwabara in the early 1810s. In Kashiwabara, his life was marked by sorrow— the death of his first wife and three children, an unsuccessful second marriage, the burning down of his house, and a third marriage.
Issa’s haiku are as attentive to the small creatures of the world—mosquitoes, bats, cats—as they are tinged with sorrow and an awareness of the nuances of human behavior. In addition to haiku, Issa wrote pieces that intertwined prose and poetry, including Journal of My Father’s Last Days and The Year of My Life.”
The moon in August is sometimes called the Corn Moon or Cold Moon. Now this time of year when referring to the full moon, however, in Japan, they are referring to the autumn moon or harvest moon which I prefer to write about in September. I am really not ready to write that much about autumn…yet.
I remember travelling by car or by bus marveling at the full moon. It is sometimes on my left side and then my right side depending where I am driving and how many twists and curves I have taken. But when I am driving home alone late at night, somehow I don’t feel so alone. It is almost a sordid affair…like the man on the moon is keeping me company and only he and I exist until I get home.
Sometimes I get up in the morning and I am dazed, with dreams still lingering in my mind. Those first few seconds where I ask myself, “Um, what day is it? Where am I?” and slowly I come back to my real mundane world.
This morning was like that and as the day progressed, it changed from satisfying and calm to frustrating and chaotic. Now, all of this was going on in MY mind! Personal situations started bubbling. Then, you know when you day is going smoothly and then you ask for something out of the ordinary to someone yet, simple in a logical world would be a no brainer. Well, we do not always live in a logical world, now do we? Everyone has their own thing, their own moods, their own triggers and their own perceptions and ideas of logical.
The longer it takes to get a response to my request, the more I regress to that snot faced toddler stomping his feet…yep, that is pretty much how I felt. Part of me was silly and childish and another part of me was logical trying to make sense in a less than logical environment. Now mind you, this was still all going on in my mind again…good thing no one saw the scenarios in my mind’s eye!!
Well, my blood pressure surely went up a notch or two and that can be dangerous with a seasoned person like me but now I am calmer. Things are sorted out and I have grown out of my toddler’s shorts and I’m all “growed up now!”
inhaling a new day
golden glow on blue canvas
life can be like that
dark clouds loom mid-day
bright moods turn to gloom
life can be like that
day’s end takes a turn
orange and magenta skies
life can be like that
