“Seasons Change” haibun

(Watercolor above by author below)

For Frank Tassone….a wonderful haiku writer.

I love Haibun form, and I love to ‘answer’ the Haibun with other forms like Tanka and Haiku.  In this time of complex stress….it’s good to have this before my eyes.

Lady Nyo

Haibun:  Light filtering ….Seasons Change

 

Autumn wind startles–
Lowered to an ominous
Key—Ah! Mournful sounds!
The fat mountain deer listen-
Add their bellowing sorrow.

 

The gingko filters the sunlight, the ground a crescent- printed cloth fit for a yukata.  It hits my hands and feet, creating white scars that do not burn.  I welcome the sun.  My bones grow thin.

This passage, from summer to fall, eternal movement of Universal  Design, counts down the years I have left.  There is so much more to savor.  Two lives would not be enough.

Tsuki, a beggar’s cup too thin to fatten the road, still shines with a golden brightness, unwavering in the chill aki wind. The Milky Way reigns over all.

 

Sharp moon cuts the sky

The fierce wind from the mountains

Disturbs dragonflies.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Seasons Change” ..a haibun.

(“Canada Geese”, watercolor, Jane Kohut-Bartels)

 

Utilizing Tanka form and Haiku.

 

Autumn wind startles–
Lowered to an ominous
Key—Ah! Mournful sounds!
The fat mountain deer listen-
Add their bellowing sorrow.

 

 

The gingko filters the sunlight, the ground a crescent- printed cloth fit for a yukata. It hits my hands and feet, creating white scars that do not burn. I welcome the sun. My bones grow thin.

This passage, from summer to fall, eternal movement of Universal Design, counts down the years I have left. There is so much more to savor. Two lives would not be enough.

Tsuki, a beggar’s cup too thin to fatten the road, still shines with a golden brightness, unwavering in the chill aki wind. The Milky Way reigns over all.

 

Sharp moon cuts the sky

The fierce wind from the mountains

Disturbs dragonflies.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2019

Haibun Monday: “Seasons Change”

Autumn colors from my bathroom window

Komorebi:  the Japanese word for  light filtering, that time between summer and autumn., seasons changing. It is more extensive than what I write here, so read what Kanzen Sakura over at dversepoets.com says.  She is hosting Haibun Monday and her prompt is this.    There are sure to be some marvelous haibun (short paragraphs that originally were travel notes….) ending with a  relating haiku.

Lady Nyo

 

Seasons Change

 

Autumn wind startles–
Lowered to an ominous
Key—Ah! Mournful sounds!
The fat mountain deer listen-
Add their bellowing sorrow.

 

 

The ginkgo filters  sunlight, the ground a crescent- printed cloth fit for a yukata.  It hits my hands and feet, creating white scars that do not burn.  I welcome the sun.  My bones grow thin.

This passage, from summer to fall, eternal movement of Universal  Design, counts down the years I have left.  There is so much more to savor.  Two lives would not be enough.

Tsuki, a beggar’s cup too thin to fatten the road, still shines with a golden brightness, unwavering in the chill aki wind. The Milky Way reigns over all.

 

Sharp moon cuts the sky

 Fierce wind howls from the mountains

Disturbs dragonflies.

 

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

 

 

“Seasons Change”

(Watercolor, Dawn Breaks, jane kohut-bartels, 2000)

Over at dverse, Paul Dear is giving a prompt of “River” meaning many things to different poets. This is my interpretation.

Jane

—

I took a walk this morning.

The seasons have changed here

though where you are they don’t.

The dried, brittle grass beneath my feet

made a consistent crackle,

echoed by the gossip of sparrows above.

 

The leaves are stripped from the birches and maples.

They fell like rain on a fallow ground one day

and I didn’t see them go.

 

I think of your rounded arms when I see the shedding birches,

the smooth bark like white skin with a faint pulse of the river beneath.

 

Do you remember that river, when it scared you to stand close to the bank?

You thought the earth would slip inward,

take you on a wild ride downstream where

I couldn’t retrieve you,

and I saw for an instant your raised arms imploring me silently to save you—

though it never happened and you never slipped down the bank and I never could save you.

 

But imagination plays with your mind when it’s all that is left.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2016

“Seasons Change”

–

Why I write poetry? It’s a dedication to the imagination and also to the heart. It’s not a medium obsessed over by the general population with their smart phones glued to their ears, nor to those who watch endless tv and movies. Of all the arts, it’s probably the most ignored, passed over.

Yet….for some, they find the same phenomena I do.  It’s a passage deeper into introspection, weighing the difference between crass sentimentality and something ….well, less mawkish.  Of course sentimentality can’t be totally dismissed, because it is a factor of life and the human heart.  But….there has to be more to our cobbling of words, our poetry than that. At the same time a poet has to be careful of the other end of the scale: unfeeling rationality, hard-heartedness. It’s a balancing act.

It’s a life-time pursuit with many stops and starts.  In the end, we hope to sharpen our vision into those things around us, inside and out. We hope to be able, in our poetry, to connect in a universal way.

Lady Nyo

–

–

SEASONS CHANGE

–

I took a walk this morning.

The seasons have changed here

though where you are they don’t.

The dried, brittle grass beneath my feet

made a consistent crackle,

echoed by the gossip of sparrows above.

–

The leaves are stripped from the birches and maples.

They fell like rain on a fallow ground one day

and I didn’t see them go.

–

I think of your rounded arms when I see the shedding birches,

the smooth bark like white skin

with a faint pulse of the river beneath.

–

Do you remember that river,

when it scared you to stand close to the bank?

You thought the earth would slip inward,

take you on a wild ride downstream

where I couldn’t retrieve you,

and I saw for an instant your raised arms

imploring me silently to save you—

though it never happened

and you never slipped down the bank

and I never could save you.

–

But imagination plays with your mind when it’s all that is left.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2015 from “A Seasoning of Lust”, Lulu.com, 2009

“Winter Comes Too Soon”, a poem

 

 

This logo above is the Narcissists Slayer Award.  I am honored to receive from CZBZ’s blog (to the right side listed).  CZ is a phen. writer and especially on narcissism and what it does in our lives and in general society. At first I thought the logo was a nose, or perhaps garlic (I think it is…..But I am honored, I tell ya.)  I don’t write too much anymore on Narcissism, but damn If I haven’t got them in my FOO (Family Of Origin).  It’s like walking in a cow pasture around narcissists.  Thank you, CZ!

 

Merry Christmas!

 

WINTER COMES TOO SOON

Autumn,

That too-fickle season

Has thrown off Joseph’s coat

And turned to winter.

–

Gone the leaves

Brilliant matinees of airborne jewels

Illuminated in prismatic splendor

By the sun piercing a brittle blue sky–

Replaced with blackened limbs

Stretching naked arms towards a glowering sky.

–

The season of alms and hunger has begun.

Gone the pelting rains

Which poured down window panes

Like crinkled crepe paper

Distorting the view of the shearing outside.

–

Gone too, are the golden sunsets

Where a beam of light transposes

Distant trees, paints the belly of clouds.

–

The leaves and color are gone

And that is as it should be.

What is now outside

Hints at what is beginning inside–

A long passage through a muted season.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2013

‘Seasons Change’, posted for dversepoets. com and Gooseberrygoespoetic.com

 

"Dusk", oil, janekohut-bartels, 2006

SEASONS CHANGE

– 

I took a walk this morning.

The season has changed here

though where you are they don’t.

–

The dried, brittle grass beneath my feet

made a consistent crackle,

echoed by the gossip of sparrows above.

The leaves are stripped from the birches and maples.

They fell like rain on a fallow ground one day

and I didn’t see them go.

–

I think of your rounded arms when I see the shedding birches,

the smooth bark like white skin with a faint pulse of the river beneath.

Do you remember that river, when it scared you to stand close to the bank?

–

You thought the earth would slip inward,

take you on a wild ride downstream where

I couldn’t retrieve you,

and I saw for an instant your raised arms imploring me silently to save you—

though it never happened and you never slipped down the bank and I never could save you.

–

But imagination plays with your mind when it’s all that is left.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2011

from ‘White Cranes of Heaven’, published by Lulu.com, 2010

Two new poems: “The Apple Tree” and “Seasons Change”

Ahhh, these are rather depressing poems and I am sorry if they seem so, but I thinking of the change in season and these popped up.

THE APPLE TREE

I looked at the apple tree today,
the one the storm did not take,
and saw it still full of apples,
mottled, green/red fruit, some
rotted through with ants eating
at the brown-turning flesh
and I thought of the last months
and what was ripening inside you
and we still didn’t know….
when your breasts were like
the now ripening apples,

globes of heaviness, topped with brown nipples,
they lay in my cradling hands warm with life

and I could feel them pulse,
the river inside still flowing.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2008

SEASONS CHANGE

I took a walk this morning,
The season has changed here
Though where you are they don’t.
The dried, brittle grass beneath my feet
Made a consistent crackle,
Echoed by the gossip of sparrows above.

The leaves are gone now from the birches and maples.
They fell like rain on a fallow ground one day
And I didn’t see them go.

I think of your rounded arms

when I see the Shedding birches,

the smooth bark like White skin

with a faint pulse of the river beneath.

Do you remember the river,

where it scared you to stand close to the bank?
You thought the earth would slip inward and
Take you on a wild ride downstream where
I couldn’t retrieve you,
And I saw for an instant your raised arms to me,

imploring me silently to save you,
though it never happened

and you never slipped down the bank and I never could save you.

But imagination plays with your mind

when it is all you have left.

jane kohut-bartels
copyrighted, 2008