…….since I wrote a poem. I have been scribbling away in the background but have given more time these last years to collecting thoughts, feelings and observations in a journal. Reflections on life, on love and on loss. Perhaps some if it will find its way here.
This morning I felt compelled to pen a Haibun.
I have spent much of the last 2 months listening to and reading the work of Stephen Jenkinson and this particular piece owes much to the composting of my own internal garden that has resulted from this engagement.
I am submitting to the wonderful earthwheel open link weekend.
Gone
Seeds of Rosebay Willowherb lift gently against a deep blue sky, the kind that only a Scottish autumnal day can offer. I watch as they drift upwards and away toward some unknown destination and a possible landing and rooting or perhaps not. They do not choose their direction, nor does the wind know which way it is blowing in this balletic dance of birth and death. It is a moment of pure emergence and here i sit with the mistaken belief that i am witness to all of this. That my consciousness is somehow removed from the unfolding and from the terror of that wind blown unknown.
This transcendental watchman is not human enough for me these days. He does not know that he does not know. This sense of mastery gives rise to an illusion of inner peace and in the stillness and solitude of this wind whispered wisdom, he, is diminished. Seed-sized and unimportant now. The proper place to be. As if beholding all the ‘there not there galaxies of a dark night or watching the horizon painted by a dying sun. Seeing the droplet heavy morning dew hanging by a spider thread and recognising the impermanence of it all and grieving a winnowing ache for all that.
Fireweed seeds and me
clearly not so different
both are blown away
Paul Scribbles 
so good to read you again, Paul.
that ache of which you speak at the close of the 2nd verse – I’m not sure if it’s the same as, but recently I came across the Portuguese term “saudade” or “sodade”, and perhaps it is kin. It’s not nostalgia, that’s for certain. There are terms in non-English tongues that are not directly translatable, but for which English is barren of description.
Good to hear from you too. I am familiar with the term Saudade and perhaps they are a kind of kin. I am attempting to grasp a sense of the feeling that I connect with now of what will be left in my wake, in our collective wake. The dead longing perhaps or maybe me ‘future longing’ for what will be lost?
“And grieving a winnowing ache for all that….” How I resonate with that inner ache. Love the haiku at the end too! Lovely to read you again, Paul, and to see you at earthweal. Keep coming back.
Thank You Sherry. There lies a winter in solitary in my cabin ahead and so perhaps a little more time for writing. We shall see.
Beautifully written – those seeds dancing on the wind. I wonder if any of us are so different from them!
Thank you. That we are not, is the essence of the piece. Thinking that we are is, I believe, at the heart of our modern day struggles.
It’s an interesting question.
Good to hear from you Paul – sometimes being away from poetry is a dormancy and gestation of new ways into the Otherworld. Hope it has been so for you. The drifting lilt of sadness is autumnal in my gloss, impermanent and fading into oblivion. Getting old(er) is a bittersweet road.
Gestation is a good descriptor. It remains to be seen if and how it shows up poetically. Thanks for dropping by.