Of Creek Rocks and Crows

sun again
who couldn't walk forever
into spring?


After a light dusting of snow, McCormick's Creek Park is the perfect place to experience a series of winter moments. The first one was opening the car door above a sheet of grizzled hike. The next--negotiating carefully across it as it glittered in the late January sun. Luckily, it was the best kind of ice, striated, uneven, bumpy, the kind your boots naturally find purchase on--so no falling. Then hiking Trail 5, the Wolf Cave Trail, all three of us Tom, Mr. Darcy and I, stopped to a loud clattering above us: a woodpecker searching for lunch.

Later, we crossed and recrossed the creek. The water ran high after all that rain. We had to maneuver over stones and rime-crusted logs and I thought later that haiku resembles that, a careful stepping over the void, seeking purchase from rock-word to rock-word, bridging one state of consciousness to the next. OK, that's a stretched metaphor--yes, indeedy.

But the two hundred crows just west of Ellettsville eating chaff from last autumn's crop were not. How cool it was to see all of them fly up, wheeling in one immense black cloud against the vivid blue sky.

The Long and Short of It

at forest’s edge
so many cypress knees—
plunk of ice breaking


Do they breathe for the cypress trees? Help them stand in the (usually) swampy ground? Are they new little shoots? Apparently not the latter.

But how cool they are (no pun intended) there at the edge of the lake, like a convention of little wooden beings, sprouting out of winter's earth.

Feeling flummoxed tonight. The news announced a stupendously big solar storm, one that has spurned a really colorful and dramatic aurora further north. And though they said we could expect really good Northern Lights as far south as Michigan, being a dang optomist, I think, why not Indiana? But the sky's socked in by clouds, so little chance. I'lll try again after the State of the Union and hope for--if not a flaming aurora at least the brilliant January planets alongside steadfast Orion wielding his sword.

An Indelicate Subject

crunch of rimed grass
dog circling, circling
not sure where to pee


Yep, it's a little rough out there, rather way too smooth! When you tiptoe through the frozen grass to get your newspaper and meet two of the neighborhood children skating down your drive without skates, you know it's a day to stay inside. But alas, Mr. Darcy needed a walk so I ventured out without my shoe chains (a present last year from Thom after I broke my wrist). Our street had some welcoming bare patches but Longwood--mistakenly ventured on--turned out to be a three block long sheet of ice. Most of the way, I skated also--easier to negotiate than walking, sliding, and just catching yourself before the big fall.

The huge limbs of the maple out front no longer hang just over the ground as they did yesterday. Even without any sun, the ice looks beautiful although it can be deadly to the trees.

But for haiku, the ice-world is so rare, that you can't help but notice everything new: the sheen on the bare branches, the small buds of ice on tiny limbs, the black sheen on the driveway, all the myriad shades of white and grey and black, and not to be forgotten: the wonderful sounds: crunch, clatter, tinkle, swish.

Winter Graves

how loud the wind
in the country graveyard
first pellets of ice


Ice storm on the way. I love the sound of ice falling, both the loud clankety clank of large pieces falling off roofs and the swooshing sounds of hail falling rapidly.

This old family grave is in Yellowwood Forest. I vaguely remembered one being there, down the road from the lake toward Highway 45, but wasn't really sure. So after I had lost and recovered my son's Guatemalan hat AND my little dachshund (who has a mind of his own when he's offleash), I turned and went looking for it. And there it was, just where I remembered it at the exact place where a hiking trail intersects it.

I love the two sculptures of old trees. Not that I want a grave, but what better place to rest, under an old gnarled tree. The real ones are good enough for me.

The Past is Prologue

cabin in the woods
dented bucket, rusty spoon—
mom’s old button tin



This falling-down cabin by Lake Monroe reminds of times when I was a child and we went exploring through our far-suburban Pennsylvania fields and woods.

Once, we came upon on old house, abandoned also, with damp newspapers everywhere. They were no more than eight or ten years old, but to a grade-school kid they seemed imbued with history. Also, the house with its open roof seemed lonely as if it were calling out to its former inhabitants.

Another place we liked to roam was a giant old barn with only half a roof and missing floor boards on every level. It was a place that seemed to promise disasters of all kinds: broken bones from falling through a missing floor, tetanus from rusty nails, a police siren wailing to advertise our trespassing. But luckily, none of those bad things ever happened. Instead, there was one wonderful rope swing that you could jump up and clutch and swing over space that was once home to horses and cows.

And what, you might ask, does this have to do with haiku? Only that sense elements--this fall of light on old wood, the smell of dampness and decay, a child's toy (leaf-molded, poking up out of the ground) happen in this moment but also take us back to similar moments from long ago. The best haiku end with the resonance of a bell ringing, one moment leading to another, to another, to the next.

ice on the lake
so many ways of reading
a poem



Father Roseliep, who was a Catholic priest and writer of often very sensual haiku, described what a poet does: "With language he puts flesh on ideas and feelings; to airy nothing he gives local habitation and name."

Assigning local habitation and name to this image is easy: Yellowwood Lake yesterday, an extraordinary winter day. Mr. Darce and I took a hike here for a pleasant change, though we had to navigate an icy gravel park road to get to the trail head. But it was more than worth it. The sky was that magnificent deep blue that I like to call New Mexican blue (no matter where I find it). The lake was totally frozen though not enough to walk on, and about two inches of crunchy snow made walking the trail pleasurable. We climbed the big hill behind the lake and then walked on an old logging road. The air smelled amazingly fresh with that sweet crisp sent of snow. Someone had come before me, a solitary hiker, and I enjoyed following in his/her tracks.

After awhile, I heard a loud chirrupy sound that came closer and closer. A low hiss also was sounded. I was wondering what type of conveyance was making the latter sound when two young woman on dirt bikes rounded the bend swishing through the snow and talking a mile a minute. "We wondered whose tracks they were," they said pointing. "Not mine," I said, "Haven't gone that way yet." And they were gone.

But the day was not. Wonderfully quiet again and still. And all mine.

Sunset Dreams over New B-town Buildings

winter sunset
brilliant yet fleeting…
your outstretched hand


Yep, this was earlier this week, not tonight when there was no sunset, no sun at all, just a dark grey sky spilling its tears. And I hope you enjoyed at least one of the many gorgeous sunsets we've been having on our springlike January days. I try not to think what 60 degree January days mean for our planet.

Today seemed more gloomy than usual, with its cold wet drizzle.

I am reading a book called Wanderlust by Elizabeth Eaves, a young woman who recounts her travels on many continents. In the section I am reading she is visiting Egypt and watching a huge orange moon rise over the desert. (We did have some good moon nights also.)

She describes how the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, who had wanderlust also, went to West Africa when only twenty-three. He said he wanted "to trap life-to preserve life in the act of living." This for some reason reminded me of haiku. Not the "trap" word exactly but something about capturing its fleetingness. And you can no more do it with haiku then you can with a photograph. All are just brushstrokes, light images, flickers of a tiny part of an immense whole we are so lucky to be part of even on this cold, puddle-filled night.

"Depth of the Journey"

No haiku tonight. Instead go out and look at that gorgeous January moon! Jupiter reigns also--a spot of gold in the southern sky. Venus was out early after sunset, clear and bright while Orion rules the east with his sword ready to combat any comet wanderers.

Journeying

Zen students speak of the "monkey mind." But when I consider haiku I think more of the vagabond mind, the mind that we utilize on journeys. By this I mean all the sensibilities we bring to exploring a new place or a place far from our everyday world--the way we observe deeply, learn, absorb, and open ourselves to each new moment. And you can do that reading haiku as well as writing it.

Harley King in his essay "The Art of Reading Haiku" advises, “We are given only the bare bones of a moment by the poet. It is our choice as to whether we stop with the skeleton or flesh out the meaning. Fleshing out the bare bones is the real work. Anyone can understand the skeleton but few can create the human. Fewer still can tell the life story of that human. A reader of haiku is like an archeologist who creates the history of a culture from a few bones and artifacts..."

King goes on to say, “Haiku does not express emotion from the inside out by displaying the mind of a character. Haiku builds the emotional thrust, makes the artistic statement from the outside in, from the physical world to the mind and heart of the reader. All things begin, end and return to the physical...."

Another important point that King makes is that "Haiku point the way and the reader must take the journey himself. The length and depth of the journey the reader travels depends entirely on the reader. The understanding of haiku depends on the skill of the reader in interpreting the road signs...Reading haiku is as much an art as writing it. The reader needs to pause and listen to the silences, to feel the spaces between the words, and to journey to the depths of the many multi-colored worlds."

January Full Moon

Full Wolf Moon--
bisecting Orion
contrail coursing south

Winter Trees

sunset light
mostly claimed by trees
still there is enough







Walked home just before sunset on a very cold but very clear winter day. The trees on IU's campus looked particularly beautiful: the bark on the bald cypress by the Jordan River was turning a rose-gold, a large sycamore at the edge of Dunn Meadow was half-bathed in sunset light, and this beautiful tree lifted its jagged limbs toward the darkening sky. Spent a few minutes really observing each.

Last May campus lost some very large trees when a tornado and a bad thunderstorm whipped through town-- both within a few days. Today it was great to notice a half-dozen or more little bald cypresses planted by the Jordan. An inscription said that they were planted in October. This means in a generation or so people will walk under these grand trees at winter sunset and admire them.

Winter Sunsets

in the gloaming
red contrail crosses sky
silence of crows



Yesterday I enjoyed the absolutely best sunset of 2012! OK, I'll admit it--where exactly was my camera? Back home on the table inside my little pack, forgotten along with my hat and gloves.

My son and I decided to start the new year right by hiking the Pate Hollow Trail in mid-afternoon when the sun finally came out and transformed a windy grey day into a gloriously sunny one.

We took both our dogs to Pate Hollow. The miniature dachshund was not keen on crossing creeks--they had been dry for months. Plus whenever you stopped to wait for him, his first impulse was to turn around and trot back--he's never understood the loop concept. The light reflecting off the bare grey bark of the trees was really beautiful especially on the hillsides when you could see hundreds of trees rising toward the sky. Afterwards we drove down to the campground and were going to watch the sunset but the wind had gotten very blustery and we still had four or five finger-widths to wait. And the dachshund had no more patience for that wind.

We drove back to town and at the gas station saw the western sky glowing red-pink. It almost looked like an aurora and gradually the clouds became purple and the horizon line a blood red. Very dramatic winter sunset.

Now something about haiku. Here's a quote from Jane Reichhold from an Ami Kaye interview at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. I like it because I find it incredibly difficult to write good haiku. For me longer poems come much easier--not that they always come or even come easily. But if I could paint (which I can't)it would be like completing a good painting with three or one or two simply masterful strokes. How likely is that? So this quote is a great way to start the new year with haiku:

"I don’t think the striving for a good haiku is a worthy goal. In fact there are times I can see haiku almost as a ‘throw-away by-product.’ The most important aspect of haiku is the way you must live in order to write haiku. If you live being aware of your senses, trusting them instead of your mind, being non-judgmental, being open to everything and everyone, reverent, accepting yourself and others as not perfect but just what is in this one precious moment of time and rejoicing in life and living it to the fullest – this is your poetry."

Good precepts for living the year with or without the haiku!