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Tinges of summer

by joanie 

Posted: 29 May 2005
Word Count: 175
Summary: A haibun - I hope! From the exercise in Poetry Seminar. A first attempt. I decided to intersperse haiku, with a 3-5-3 pattern..... not sure why!


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The horizon is a knife-edge, a two-tone burst of blue so clear that I could reach out and touch it. White sail triangles cut effortlessly across the water as wisps of cotton clouds scud across the sky, mocking in light-hearted competition. Green freshness finds its perfect counterpoint in cobalt.

dead blossom
promising new fruit
in season

A chaffinch sitting as high as he can possibly go sings as if today is his last, as he has been doing since dawn. Distant voices shrieking with childish excitement are whisked up on the breeze to join the barbecue smoke. This fragment of time stretches out forever.

stop the clocks,
British Summer Time
ends too soon

Flowers have sprung up overnight, it seems, while my eyes were blinded by a life busy with fripperies. A brilliant backdrop of pinks, blues and mauves draws me into its colour so that I want to breathe the innumerable tones and hues deep into my lungs. I join the downy bees to drink it in.

all nature
working overtime,
day of rest











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Comments by other Members



Mac AM at 08:42 on 30 May 2005  Report this post
You have incorporated the prose and the poetry seamlessly and I love the freshness of green being the perfect counterpoint to cobalt.

How you have captured a day like today in all its glory. I shall be thinking of this all day while I'm in the garden, and as the chaffinch sings and the smoke from next doors BBQ rises, I'll know the truth in your poem.

Mac


joanie at 10:43 on 30 May 2005  Report this post
Thank you, Mac.

joanie

jewelsx at 19:33 on 01 June 2005  Report this post
joanie,

This is fantastic! I feel inspired i am going to attempt a haibun myself.

Well done i loved it
Jewelsx

joanie at 19:58 on 01 June 2005  Report this post
Thank you, Jewelsx!

joanie

Nell at 15:15 on 02 June 2005  Report this post
Joanie, I'm coming late to this - I did read a day or so ago but haven't had time to comment before now. This is beautifully done - I can see it all very clearly. Some lovely lines too - I especially liked ...The horizon is a knife-edge, a two-tone burst of blue... and the image of the ...white sail triangles... I love the idea of the voices ...whisked up on the breeze to join the barbecue smoke... and time stretching out forever, of joining the downy bees to drink in the colour. The interspersing of the haiku with the prose is oddly satisfying - I think I've said that before - as if coming on the haiku after the prose one appreciates its minimal quality more, and vice versa.

The line ...A chaffinch sitting as high as he can possibly go... felt odd to me; I think I almost mistook that line to be about his voice and when it wasn't began to question the sense of the sentence itself - for surely a chaffinch can sit as high as he likes within the limits of the height of the tree? Perhaps it's just that that whole sentence is a little awkward and could have been put more smoothly. Likewise the comma after 'overnight' draws too much attention to 'it seems' and makes one wonder whether you those two words, it might be better without (the comma).

The idea of all nature working overtime while we're having a day of rest is unexpected and made me smile, imagining you in a deck chair in the garden after being ...blinded by a life busy with fripperies... and I tried to imagine the fripperies but failed!

An excellent response to the exercise - I've yet to attempt mine, but I will, I will!

Nell.


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