Haiga

Poetry Friday is here and it's almost stick season in the northeast. Some leaves remained on their trees long enough for those of us who have been away to see some color this year, so I'm grateful for that. I'm also grateful for Jama who's hosting today's poems and their authors! Her posts are always gorgeous (and delicious), informative and inspiring.

Today's post is PASSIONATE about our responsibility to VOTE in Tuesday's election. Go read the poem by Judith Harris, enjoy the wonderful art, and get ready to cast your vote in the most important election of our lifetimes.

On Halloween,  my husband and I left Japan after two months volunteering at the Asian Rural Institute. We had been appointed as short term missionaries by Global Ministries. As we flew over Alaska in the middle of the night on our way home to vote, the view out my window was peaceful, almost ethereal. I was surprised at the words that emerged as I began to record this scene in a poem. Here is my haiga.

Photo and poem  Joyce Ray Copyright

right wing slicing through

stillness over moonlit clouds 

spurs at the ready

A SNOWY HAIGA

 WELCOME TO POETRY FRIDAY

 

The recent blanketing of snow is just what I've been waiting for. Not because I like to shovel, but because it's the perfect time to share a snowy day poem. With her permission, I'm sharing Diane Mayr's poem, her gift to me for the Winter Poem Swap along with a delicious poetry collection entitled The Bees, by British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. How lucky for me that Diane took a break from her amazing Kud-dos to Emily project to participate in the Winter Poem Swap. Keep an eye on her blog Random Noodling for haiku paired with Emily Dickinson's poetry.

 "A Snowy Monday," a painting by New Hampshire artist Lilla Cabot Perry, inspired the poem of the same title. It's a series of haiku, but perhaps it's also a modern haiga because Diane, so practiced in this art, paired her poem with the painting. And that makes me think it's also an ekphrastic poem!

A Snowy Monday

early morning
silence before
the snow plow

snow day
no good reason not to
have another cup

they check
the root cellar 
for a nose

from the safety
of a snowy hemlock
house sparrows scold

knitting
a little color
into the day

radiator clink
the smell of wet wool
mittens

         ~dmayr

Poets.org says "While the haiku and the painting in a haiga share the same space, they are meant to complement, and not explain, one another." And the poem "A Snowy Monday" does just that. The eye takes in a scene so familiar to those of us who live in the north, while the ear hears the plow rumbling by, birds chattering, the radiator churning out heat, and the nose inhales the aroma of brewed coffee or tea. It's the last olfactory detail that really makes me love this poem. It brought me right back to my childhood -  "the smell of wet wool mittens."

Skip over to These 4 Corners for the Poetry Roundup. Thanks, Paul!