For the past few weeks, I've been jotting haiku and tanka in my notebook before bed. These are drafts that I might go back to someday and work on a bit more. Mostly, I'm just trying to take notice of what is happening in my life right now. Writing helps me do that.
the stream along our walking path
the lake we love to visit
we walk hand-in-hand
on a path we know so well
yet always seems new
walking the shoreline
we navigate ebbs and flows—
our life together
a bench by the lake
dedicated to someone
I have never met
sitting in a place she loved—
I think we would have been friends
this uncertain spring
we begin to discover
the unfamiliar
in a life we once believed
would always be familiar
©Linda
Kulp Trout
A big thank you to Elizabeth Steinglass for hosting today's Poetry Friday.
Beautiful. What a lovely way to end your day, capturing moments. I love line three of your first haiku...always new. That's so true! Although, I cannot explain how it happens.
ReplyDeleteOh my, these are beautiful. What a lovely ritual for the end of your day. I think I am especially moved by the "we" which gives them all so much resonance.
ReplyDeleteThose last two, especially, are lovely. I also feel a kinship when I sit on a memorial bench somewhere...
ReplyDeleteWonderful, Linda. Love the habit, love the results. The two tanka especially spoke to me. I think I may have to adopt a similar before bed ritual.
ReplyDeleteYour writing habit is one I would like to develop... seems I'm all over the place, but making my peace with that. Thanks for sharing these haiku/tanka pieces.
ReplyDeleteThese are so poignant, Linda, captures a time we didn't know we would ever have. I love your thoughts, like about the bench, and that final one, "a life we once believed/would always be familiar" feels heartbreaking. I have lived years & had many good times, but I feel especially sad for my own children & grandchildren, facing those years you wrote about, of uncertainty. Beautiful capturing of our times. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteIf you take the photo of the stream and placed it with the last tanka, you could have a lovely digital for my #NatureNurtures2020. Let me know if this is something you would like to try to create.
ReplyDeleteLovely poems, Linda. They made me calmer reading them. The last one especially resonates.
ReplyDeleteThe loving, curious spirit that comes through in these poems resonates with all of us readers. Thanks, Linda!
ReplyDeleteThese are lovely. I started the year with a daily haiku practice. I've let it slide since my routines have been disrupted. You inspire me to get back to it.
ReplyDeleteThese are really lovely, Linda. You have captured the simplicity of everyday moments in nature, in unexpected ways. And that's haiku/tanka in a nutshell. I find it hard to pick a favourite.
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