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Photo: Dwight L. Roth
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Photo: Dwight L. Roth
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Creeping in with the beauty of March is that madness that comes with the opening of tree buds and flowers. Pear trees bloom and maples push buds, making all those little helicopters that twirl their way down to the yard. The madness of it all comes not in the beauty, but rather in the pollen that floats through the air and coats my car windows with yellow dust. People with allergies go mad!
Every year it seems March madness takes over my head, fills my sinuses and makes me ache all over. I am recovering as I write from a week of misery that wants to stay with me. Even all the excess rain has not dampened “March Madness”.
Merril at d’Verse asked us to write a Haibun about March Maddness. This is not the basketball madness that we experience in the Carolinas, but rather other aspects of March that may drive us crazy. I chose the allergy season that comes every year.
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Photo: Dwight L. Roth
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Photo: Bing image
Written for Frank Tassone’s Haikia Saturday. This is a tanka about my mother’s flowers.
#Haikai Challenge #36 (6/2/18): Peony (botan) #haiku #senryu #haibun #tanka #haiga #renga
Patience… Nature’s Rule (a Hai bun)
In our world, we bow down and worship instant gratification. We find the opposite is true with nature. Since time began, nature has been patiently going through its annual cycles and seasons.
The book of Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time and a season for everything, a time for every purpose under heaven. Nature teaches us to be patient and wait for the right moment. The buds sitting in each joint wait for the sun, rain, and light to be exactly in sync before opening.
Sometimes we think we must make things happen in our life instead of waiting for the time to be right. Rushing things usually ends in disaster. The prophet Isaiah tells us, Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. There is a lot of wisdom in waiting for the right time to bloom. You will know when everything is in sync and the time is right.
Stump of each dry leaf
A bud full of potential
Waiting patiently
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Photo: Dwight L. Roth
Victoria Slotto Kicked off our week with Haibun Monday—No Ko Me—Tree Buds
“In Japanese the word pending is implied in the Kigo, No Ko Me--tree buds. The bud holds so much potential, the possibility of the tree becoming all that is was created to be.”
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I thought I killed my grape vine this summer! When the Japanese Beatles began to devour the fresh green leaves, I thought I would try my own homemade natural insect spray. As it turned out it was much too strong, and though it got rid of the beetles it also got rid of all the leaves it landed upon. After a week or two the dried up leaves began to fall off and I noticed new buds coming out at the base of the old leaves. In a couple weeks I had an arbor full of leaves and the stalk was much hardier. As my summer lilac dries up in the sunshine I see the same thing. New buds are awaiting the right conditions and will come out and renew the plant once more. This poem compares this renewal to our human condition.
At the base of each drying leaf
Is a bud full of life and potential
Waiting patiently for summer’s heat
Or winter’s cold to pass
In the cool of spring
The refreshing showers
The promise of warmth
Sap rises in the cambium
Pushes open that small bud
Enlarging into a new fresh leaf
Green and vigorous
Full of life
Remember…
Behind all that crushes you
Makes you feel devastated
Hopeless and distraught
Lies a bud of strength and potential
Waiting for you to recognize
That your spring has arrived
Once more
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Photos: Dwight L. Roth
