Haiku Canada Review: October 2010

A new issue of Haiku Canada Review came across my desk quite awhile back and I'm finally getting to it .  As I've mentioned before (and before that), it is one my favorite haiku mags. It comes out three times a year, is always jam packed with interesting, challenging work, including haiku, haibun, linked verse and reviews, all of which are at once thought provoking and inspirational.  Editor LeRoy Gorman deftly blends together the traditional and experimental; in the 10 years I've been reading I've never been disappointed.

The October 2010 issue is no exception. Here are a few highlights from that issue:

temple pond
the moon floats by
just out of reach

Pat Benedict

A classic haiku in form and execution, calling to mind Li Po's (Li Bai) famed adventure trying to embrace the moon.  While looking up this legendary incident, I ran across a website with 40 different translations of his own poem about drinking and the moon, (variously titled) "Drinking Alone by Moonlight." 

dust particles
suspended-
first day of school

Deborah Fox

Dust motes in the golden light of autumn seem a universal, almost a collective conscious memory.  It is the time of the year, the slant of the sun, the balance of low humidity, and atmospheric pressure - and it is magic.

the vagrant
reasoning with someone
who isn't there

Barry George

With the ubiquity of the cell phone and other connective devices, it's often hard to sort the disturbed from the disturbing.  "Reasoning" is the perfect word here because the vagrant, like the actor in a play, is completely convinced, and convincing, in his role.  The phonies, pun intended, you can smell a mile away.


This next poem begins:

another motel

and I thought, oh, the ennui, I'm not sure if I'm going to like where this is going, when it suddenly pivots on its axis:

another motel
this time nearby
frog songs

Jeanne Jorgensen

Perfect: the commonplace is transformed and, come to think of it, that's as good a definition of haiku as I've run across this week.  The frog pulls us back where we belong - the time, the place, the uniformity all fall away for a timeless event.

Here's another poem with a less than promising opening line, that takes a great turn:

two-for-one sale
crows gather
outside McDonald's

Nida

Funny and sad and ominous at once, all in 8 words, quite a slick feat.

not so sure
but the waxwings want them
ripe red berries

Bruce Ross

Here the poet, like an expert fisherman, lets the truth come to him, no easy task for the amateur. 

her tennis arm -
a swan dips its head
to the water

Richard Stevenson

On one level, this feels mundane, but there is something sublime here.  To see how close this poem comes to not working, simply place the 1st line last.  The shape and movement of the swan's neck raises the tennis arm, something usually ignored, to a thing of exquisite beauty.  Reversed, the effect would have been opposite.

cadence of bells
frail arms lift for a change
of clothes

Roberta Beary

This haiku from a haibun by Roberta Beary resonates, not only with sound, but motion.

The following is a verse from a renku:

the woman
selling dreamcatchers
sighs

Barry George

Well, it doesn't get much better than this - a haiku poet at exactly the right place at the right time, and paying attention, to boot.

hearing the train whistle
bound for the city...
here in the city

Barry George

This reminds me of the poem by Bashō about longing for Kyoto while in Kyoto.  There is more than nostalgia here, though I believe the two poems share a deep sense of longing, perhaps under very different circumstances.

Than again, perhaps the circumstances are nearly the same. Love, and the love of love, are universal.

into the future
as fast as all of us
this garden snail

George Swede

There is Issa's haiku about the snail climbing Mount Fuji (but slowly, slowly) but, dare I say it, this one rivals the Master.    Here, at once, we see why the snail may make it to the top of Mount Fuji, and why it may not, and why we may make it to the top of Mount Fuji, and why we may not.

from the bridge
between my hemispheres
grandfather still fishes

George Swede

This is another beauty by one of our modern masters; we are firmly in the present moment and at the same time, lodged in the past, all in the gray matter, deftly separated by the poet, into the two hemispheres of his own brain.  Brilliant.

The Salvation Army truck
packed from floor to ceiling
with my dead mother's things
I remove a wicker basket
I don't need

George Swede

This is touching in every sense of the word.  Each and everyone of us who have been there have done this and we may not have even made a conscious decision to do so or had the self-awareness to realize why.

birthday surprise -
no extra waves
on the ocean

Gary Hotham

This poem comes from a review of Gary Hotham's book Spilled Milk: Haiku Destinies.  The reviews in HCN are always very good and here is what the reviewer, Guy Simser, had to say about this one:

Read this literally and see a tranquil seashore picture.  Read this more deeply and you sense an ego deflating. Make of it what you will folks, He says, that's all there is.  In the time it takes a hummingbird to disappear and suddenly reappear in a different place....there's your haiku, back with a new meaning.

I like Simser's take here, most especially because he notes that Hotham's poem is so good it allows more interpretations than his own.  My kind of critic ...


For more on Haiku Canada, visit their website.   Membership includes a subscription to HCR, published 3 times a year, plus newsletters, a Members' Anthology and Haiku Canada Sheets.  Or, if you prefer, subscription includes membership, with all of the above as noted.

Membership (Subscriptions:)

Regular - Canada       - $25 CDN
Regular - U.S.           -  $27 US
Regular - International - $30 US
Student - Canada        - $15 CDN  Other $15 US

Checks or money orders should be made out to "Haiku Canada" and mailed to:

Marco Fraticelli
148 King
Pointe Claire, QC
Canada  H9R 4H4

Submissions are open to members and non-members.  Haiku, related writing, letters and reviews are welcome.  Send to:

LeRoy Gorman, Publications Editor
91 Graham West
Napanese, ON  K7R 2J6  CANADA
leroygorman AT hotmail DOT com (email spelled out to avoid harvesting)


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Lately, I've been talking to John Bennett a bit about our mutual acquaintance - a friend of John's and an acquaintance mine from my editorial work - the late artist and poet, John Harter.  John had something many poets would, and have in fact, died for: a unique voice.  I often think of him when I think of Albert Huffstickler, not because their work was similar, but because they both had genuine, unique voices that cut to the quick of things.
 
As many of you who have been reading this blog for any length of time know, every week, usually a number of times, I feature work from past issue of Lilliput Review.  Currently, the Friday and Sunday posts have poems from the mag.  I've been doing this so long that I've gone up and down the full run of Lillie issues, up to #178 now (I'm currently laying out 179 & 180), a number of times.

In looking at #142 this morning, from back in January 2005, I noted that I've featured poems from this issue twice before and that there are still a bunch of poems worth reprinting.  What I didn't think I would stumble on is poems by John Harter I had yet to feature on the blog.  And what a wonderful surprise it was.

Here are two poems by John.  Everything he did was written in caps, with his delightfully eccentric spelling (and, in one case here alignment - that's right, this isn't just another Wentworth f-up).  I hope you enjoy these two; they are beautiful in, perhaps, a little mellower way than usual for John.

It was one of the great honors and delights of my 23 years (and counting) editing this little rag to have made John's acquaintance via poetry.

FOR STEVE

OUT OF  BED       PAJAMAS      FACE
START COFFEE GET WOOD     CUT
KINDLING NEEWWWS   P
START BLAZE
OPEN TO BLUE SKY WHIITE
CLOUDS
MAPLE OVER EVERGREEN
COFFEE
NOTE YELLOW BUDS
WRITE POEMS

FOR HANS

   RIDDING INTO THE FOREST ON
   THE BACK OF AN ANT
   I FOUND A BEAUTEFULL STONE
                      AND
   PUT IT INTO MY POCKET
   I LOST IT OF COURSE
     SO HERE IS A POEM
SORRY IT'S NOT AS
               BEAUTEFULL AS
               THAT STONE

John Harter

in mosquito territory
the double blossom
yellow roses

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get 2 free issues     Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature.  Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 93 songs
Hear 'em all at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Stephanie Knows: Issa's Sunday Service, #93

This week's selection for Issa's Sunday Service comes from one of my favorite 60s bands: Love.  The literary allusion is brief, (the mention of "poetry") with the cut being a smart, if lightweight (especially compared to their later work), pop song.  It does highlight the rocking side of a band that became famous for a more mellow folk/chamber rock vibe, best exemplified by one of the finest classic rock albums ever, Forever Changes.  

Not long after recording that album, Arthur Lee, the charismatic leader and songwriter of the band, fired everyone and started a long, checkered career with backup bands and material that never rose to the quality of his previous work.   Lee's spiraling descent hit a low point when he was sentenced to 6 to 12 years in jail i prison in 1996, the details of which may be found here.

Lee's sentence was shortened when the original trial proved tainted and he was released. What followed was an amazing coda to his story; Lee put together a new assembly of musicians, went out on the road and performed a stellar version of the Forever Changes album live, which is available in both CD and DVD editions. If you are a fan, it is not to be missed. What follows via youtube are two cuts from that tour and the Forever Changes album, performed live on Later with Jools Holland. It seemed that just as quickly as he had returned, he was gone, this time for good.

You Set the Scene



Between Clark and Hillsdale





-------------------------

It would seem that issue #106 of Lilliput Review had some amazing poems, some of which have been featured here and here and here.  So, adding to those 9, here are 10 and 11: LeRoy Gorman reminding us of a classic haiku concerning the octopus dream by Bashō and Marshall Hryciun just reminding us.

baitshop's
plastic pail
of dreams

LeRoy Gorman

       Buddha's birthday parade
one of the monks
won't take his eyes off me

Marshall Hryciun

paying no heed
to Buddha's birthday...
wildflowers

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get 2 free issues     Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature.  Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 92 songs
Hear 'em all at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Everyday I Write the Book: Issa's Sunday Service, #86

Welcome Elvis Costello, that most literate rockers of the punk movement, to his first appearance on the Sunday Service with "Everyday I Write the Book," a song I initially hated but, via an insistent hook and a couple of intervening decades, have grown to love.  Certainly, it's place on the Litrock list is well-deserved.

Here's EC and his mates, showing how to write and perform pop music with a lit flavor, complete with cheesy BBC-4 captions:

------------------------

This week Norb Blei, over at Bashō's Road, spotlighted the 2nd Annual Bashō Haiku Challenge Chapbook, printing 5 haiku from the collection, plus one found haiku by the mercurial Monsieur K.

As most of you know, I spend more time giving away free poetry than shilling what I have for sale, but if you are interested in this chapbook, which contains 53 haiku, by the likes of Ed Baker, Roberta Beary, Ruth Holzer, Ed Markowski, Gary Hotham, John Stevenson, Patrick Sweeney and more, at the incredibly low price of $3.00 (postpaid), just click on the Paypal button at the top of the page and I'll wend it your way.  Alternately, a check via snail mail also works just fine.

------------------------

Check out Red Dragonfly, Melissa Allen's fine haiku blog - celebrating her 400th post, she invited her readers to provide the content in the form of their own haiku.   34 interesting pages of Sribd work, with one humble two liner by yours truly, and lots of other work very much worth reading.

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This week, two poems are featured from Lilliput Review #115.  They both dazzle in a way you won't need your reading glasses for.  Enjoy.

Myriad of Heavens, #43
   A word says what it can
   In the way that an inch
   Says it's on a path
   to the sun.

Tim Scannell

on the Conan Doyle shelf
my lost reading glasses
wiped clean

LeRoy Gorman

on the river back home too
no doubt...
moon gazing

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get 2 free issues     Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 86 songs
Hear all 86 at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

The Other Anne Sexton: It Is A Spring Afternoon

I've spent the summer very slowly reading through the complete poems of Anne Sexton for the 3 Poems By discussion group, which will be meeting this Thursday at my other job. I recently posted about this over at a different blog and, in that post, I talked about one of her lesser known poems, "Young," and how it highlighted an aspect of Sexton that one doesn't often hear about. I continue to slowly read through her work, a poem or two at most per day, because frankly it is all I can absorb.

Last week I ran across this poem, again emphasizing an aspect of Sexton not often discussed:

It Is A Spring Afternoon

Everything here is yellow and green.
Listen to its throat, its earthskin,
the bone dry voices of the peepers
as they throb like advertisements.
The small animals of the woods
are carrying their deathmasks
into a narrow winter cave.
The scarecrow has plucked out
his two eyes like diamonds
and walked into the village.
The general and the postman
have taken off their packs.
This has all happened before
but nothing here is obsolete.
Everything here is possible.

Because of this
perhaps a young girl has laid down
her winter clothes and has casually
placed herself upon a tree limb
that hangs over a pool in the river.
She has been poured out onto the limb,
low above the houses of the fishes
as they swim in and out of her reflection
and up and down the stairs of her legs.
Her body carries clouds all the way home.
She is overlooking her watery face
in the river where blind men
come to bathe at midday.

Because of this
the ground, that winter nightmare,
has cured its sores and burst
with green birds and vitamins.
Because of this
the trees turn in their trenches
and hold up little rain cups
by their slender fingers.
Because of this
a woman stands by her stove
singing and cooking flowers.
Everything here is yellow and green.

Surely spring will allow
a girl without a stitch on
to turn softly in her sunlight
and not be afraid of her bed.
She has already counted seven
blossoms in her green green mirror.
Two rivers combine beneath her.
The face of the child wrinkles
in the water and is gone forever.
The woman is all that can be seen
in her animal loveliness.
Her cherished and obstinate skin
lies deeply under the watery tree.
Everything is altogether possible
and the blind men can also see.

Anne Sexton

I see this poem as a companion piece to "Young," portraying a time in a young woman's life when she is on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood. Though both these poems have slightly portentous undercurrents, both also emphasize a youthful promise the idea of which Sexton obviously cherished.

The loss for her of this innocence and for us of Sexton herself is almost too much to bear.



*****************************************************



This week's featured back issue is #164, from July 2008. And the war drags on ...

turned back & got lost.

John Martone

The Numbers of the Dead

which appear in the headlines
to be perfectly round
like the planets

aren't really round.
They only appear that way
when seen from a great distance.

Up close they bulge.
They are gouged, pocked, frigid,
infinitely lonely numbers

divisible only by themselves and one.

Paul Hostovsky

war$pin
war$oil
war$hip
war$ink
war$end
war$aid
war$hit
war$hot
war$how
war$own
war$old
war$pun

LeRoy Gorman

Muddy ditch water,
& dimples beneath
waterspider's feet–

---------tenuous, this life.

Hosho McCreesh

in the footprints
of the warrior...
poppies

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Haiku Canada Review

Today, I thought I'd share one of a handful of haiku journals that I really love: Haiku Canada Review. HCR is the publication of Haiku Canada, which is a society of "haiku poets and enthusiasts." The review publishes works by members and non-members alike, both traditional and non-traditional haiku, as well as haiku-related essays, haibun, linked verse (renga), and reviews. The issue I'm looking at also has 9 pages of haiku in French; I'm not sure if this is a regular feature. The magazine comes with a $25 membership and is, in my estimation, something of a bargain if you cost out how many good poems there are (and if you figure out how to do that, let me know). It is published 3 times a year in February, May and October, which means I'm at least one issue behind, reading-wise. In addition, Haiku Canada Sheets often accompany issues, usually focusing on the work of one particular member. More of that below.

HCR is edited by LeRoy Gorman, someone whom I have a great deal of admiration for as both an editor and poet. I've learned a great deal from studying his editorial eye over the 10 plus years I've been reading this magazine and owe a large debt to him for all the ideas learned and, I'm sure, stolen from his insightful approach.

The February 2008 issue is 58 pages long (counting the back cover, which I do since there is an excellent haiku by Natalia Rudychev printed there). By my approximate count, there are well over 200 poems here. Of the 200 plus I marked 17 as quite good, indeed, plus a linked sequence of 34 poems by Bruce Ross and Brent Partridge entitled "Another Heaven," which is one of the finest I've ever read (N. B. I am neither a fan of linked verse or of haibun in general, but HCR often shows me the error of my ways). Here's just a taste of some of the work:





hauling home
the Christmas tree bringing
the mountain with us

Tom Drescher

I AM - looking at stars through a straw

McMurtaugh

chicken coop
a sashaying coyote
and a thousand stars

George Swede

from a haibun:

------England
---sheep grazing
among gravestones

Chris Faiers

------ppp
---ooo
------nnnn
--dddd
-----sssss
-ttttt
-----aaaaaa
rrrrrr
------ssssss
-rrrrr
-----iiiii
-pppp
-----pppp
----lll
-----eee

McMurtaugh

From an article entitled "Wordmusic" by Gerald St. Maur comes this tanka:

With the sun behind,
you stand like a mythic swan,
the glare so blinding
I can't tell which is the way
to heaven or which to hell.

Gerald St. Maur

Here are three poems selected by the always excellent H. F. Noyes, from an article entitled "Old Age Haiku:"





Growing older
I have further to return from
when awakening

Willam Lofvers

A moment
left his deathbed
to give his
flowers water.

William Lofvers

old folks' home-
--the square of light
-----crosses the room

Michael Dylan Welch

I can't even begin to describe how beautiful the sequence "Another Heaven" by Bruce Ross and Brent Partridge (in mostly alternating verses) is, so I'll just tempt you with the first 6 verses:





lotus position
a speck of snow
on Buddha's thigh (BR)

the tip of a feather
brushes across a forehead (BP)

first real melt
a cat's muddy prints
from the garden (BR)

walking more lightly
in a haze of pollen (BP)

cloud after cloud
and up higher still
filmy day moon (BR)

like a breath– the sun
breaks into a dream (BP)

You can feel a narrative begin to develop as the poets go with each others work. Some sequences of this sort work at odds with each other (or amongst, when more than one other poet is involved), but as this sequence develops you feel the poets' egos have truly dropped away and the sequence and the poets are one.

Also, there is this beautiful one word poem that is at once humorous and, quickly upon the heels of laughter, resonant:

eyebrowse

Sandra Furhinger

letting go is the Haiku Canada Sheet that accompanied this issue and is simply stunning. A trifold 8½ x 11" sheet with 12 poems letting go is by one of truly fine purveyors of haiku in English today, Natalia L. Rudychev. Every single one of these poems spoke to me and, frankly, that's unprecedented.





silence between us. . .
cherry petals
in flight

Natalia L. Rudychev

the night of calling geese
longing to hear
the sound of my name

Natalia L. Rudychev

grandma's birthday
snowflakes fill the letters
carved into stone

Natalia L. Rudychev

nameless–
a stepped on flower
slowly reshapes itself

Natalia L. Rudychev

There is so much I could say about all this work, but that is not really the point of great haiku, senryu, renga and the like. Truly great work in the shorter Eastern modes allows the reader to participate in the creation of the verse itself; an essential element of the traditional haiku is leaving space for this type of participation to happen. In essence, the poem completes itself in the readers' mind.

What more could a poet ask of the work s/he creates? Here is the path to immortality, immortality of the moment in the moment: the teeny bud within the drop of dew.

If you are either a haiku poet or enthusiast, as stated above, Haiku Canada Review is an essential read. Over 600 poems for $25 a year?

Hmn, even I can do that math.



*****************************************************


This week, it's time to revisit Lilliput Review #19, from December 1991. 19 years ago. This tour of the archive is beginning to wind down. Originally begun as a count up from issue #100 back on July 17, 2007 at the old Beneath Cherry Blossoms blog, continued with a countdown from #99, it should finish sometime in the next 3 months. There are newer issues that I haven't covered (151 through 168) and then it'll be time to make a decision as to what direction the blog should take. Because of a lack of time, I haven't had an opportunity to link all the posts back into the archive but hopefully that will happen sometime. It has been really great to share 20 years of poetry with samples from nearly every issue published.

#17 contained some political rumblings - the first Gulf War had "concluded" earlier that year, but it was the beginning of the morass in which we find ourselves currently embroiled. Philip Waterhouse's short poem manages to cram in a lot of history and culture in 9 short lines and the mood seemed to echo throughout even the "non-political" poems in the issue:



Retirement

What say we all meet
for r&r at the Khyber
Pass with Cary and Doug.
Drink pink ladies concocted
by Gunga Deen. Dig for
meerschaum. Anything. To
get rid of this cloud
of planets buzzing around
inside our skulls.

Philip A. Waterhouse

Folk Woman Hatching

I am the woman inside
a woman inside
a woman
red-scarved
painted woman
shrinking smaller
and smaller
'til the eyes
disappear

Gina Bergamino

greek revival

while the old stones crumble
we find new forms of fucking:

parthenogenesis, & mouthless
children climb up from the ruins

with automatic eye shadow
blocking the scorched sun.

Ron Schreiber

Graveyard, Flatonia, Texas

Non-
returnable
empties.

Albert Huffstickler

not shrinking back
from the sunset...
wildflowers

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

Robert Service, Jean Shepherd, & Gary Hotham

Artwork by Guy Beining

As inevitably happens from week to week, I think of something to share and, in the press of getting other things done, forget some detail or other. One thing I really wanted to post last week relates to the recent anniversary of the birth of Robert Service (January 16^th). Though I’m not much for narrative poetry, the uniqueness and power of the work of Service is something it would be foolish to ignore. As with all great poets, Service had an insight and overwhelming empathy with the human condition; yes, empathy, because, I believe he wasn’t particularly happy about it but he knew it to the core, not unlike Bukowski, the subject of last weeks musings.

In any case, what rescues Service from morose oblivion is humor; an overriding, abundant, dark, deep sense of humor. So, for his birthday, here is a real treat: a dramatic reading by another student of the human condition, radio monologist and raconteur of many an obscure topic, Jean Shepherd. Admittedly someone who is little known outside the New York metropolitan area (aside from the adaptation of his work in the holiday perennial A Christmas Story), Shep was something of a rite of passage for the young in the late 50’s and early 60’s, one of the last threads to old school radio. He had a soft spot for poetry in general (he once did a whole show reading haiku translations of the masters, deadpan, with “Oriental” music wafting in the background, to somewhat limited success) and Service in particular and, on odd nights when in a certain mood, he would break out the Service and regale the WOR airwaves with tales of the Yukon. So, in celebration of Service’s birthday and in concert with the recent cold snap that has much of the country longing for a little heat not unlike ol' Sam McGee, here is The Cremation of Sam McGee. For more Shepherd, unexcerpted from his natural environment, see the archive of shows Mass Backwards, by Max Schmidt of WBAI, which has a permanent link at the bottom of the sidebar on this page.

I’ve received news that Gary Hotham’s Missed Appointment has been reviewed in the British magazine Presence. Here is a copy of that review by Matthew Paul:

Missed Appointment, Gary Hotham

22pp, $4 inc. postage ($3 within USA).

Cheques payable to Don Wentworth, from:

Lilliput Review, 282 Main Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201, USA

Gary Hotham has been writing haiku for four decades and his economical style is one of the most distinctive within the homogeneity that comprises much of the English-language haiku published today.

In a brief introduction, Hotham approvingly quotes the belief of Billy Collins, the American 'mainstream' and haiku poet, that haiku contains "a very deep strain of existential gratitude" and that "[a]lmost every haiku says the same thing: 'It's amazing to be alive here.'" This 'Modest Proposal Chapbook' of just 15 haiku exemplifies Hotham's ability to be absolutely in tune with what it means, at any given time, to exist. Quite simply, and in plain language adorned only by mundane adjectives, Hotham writes about things that most haiku poets would overlook:

no where else

but the next flower---

afternoon butterflies

over the parade---

a window no one

looks out of

Whether other writers would ignore such subject matter deliberately or merely by not paying enough attention to the world around them is open to debate. Hotham certainly attunes himself and his readers to moments which, rather than being vitally significant, could be considered trivial, perhaps to the point of banality; but, for my money, the humble and persistently downbeat nature of these poems is admirable in a small dose such as Missed Appointment provides. In longer collections of Hotham's work, though, I'd need a dollop or two of verbosity to offset and lighten the minimalism.

Whatever the merits of his style, one fact about Hotham surely cannot be disputed: that he writes excellent, poignant senryu, two of which I'll end with:

farewell party---

the sweetness of the cake

hard to swallow

Dad's funeral---

the same knot

in my tie

Review by Matthew Paul

This week, the following poems are from LR #141, from January 2007. If anyone is following along, you might notice I’ve skipped #140. #140 is a broadside by Alan Catlin in honor of Cid Corman, entitled “For Cid.” It is a 7 poem collection of short, delicate work which would not be served well by excerpting, though many of the poems stand well alone.

Roethke wrote:

It will come again.

Be still. Wait

How to embrace the stillness.

How to wait with grace.

Pamela Miller Ness

pollen-heavy

a bee easily clears

the headstone

LeRoy Gorman

What is there

before or after

experience?

Everything waits in the dark

for you to say,

Come in.

David Lindley

My heart is torn

since I’ve seen you.

Like the watermark in Osaka Bay

I measure my life

waiting to meet you again.

Princess Motoyoshi

translated by Dennis Maloney & Hide Oshiro

Finally, let me recommend this morning’s poem on The Writer’s Almanac: “How to Kill” by Keith Douglas, who died in the Normandy invasion. It puts a human face and sensibility on the deaths that continue today as war rages on.

best,

Don