Like Kyogen’s stone

small change

She made her way down the steps and as she took her first step on the path, conk, she felt something hitting her head fast and hard. Just about where her right frontal lobe area might be residing, a big nut from a tree (which she can’t identify botanically just now), knocked, as if trying to remind her of the sense of the day she spent.

Like Kyogen’s stone,
that falling nut made contact
with something pliable.

*

feathers of hope

Went back to Cordelia this afternoon. I saw people looking in pools as I arrived. I went up and there, in the first pool I got to, were about twenty surf scoters. Swimming. Clean, washed, waterproof, and swimming. I sketched one quickly. Have you seen the grebes, I was asked.

Free of oil,
the surf scoters swim in circles
around the pool.

*

The Middlewesterner

The red tail hawk just north of Fairwater is the color of absence today. Everything changes in the somberness.

Hawk in the rain
darkens to match her perch
above the highway.

*

Roundrock Journal

The stump has rotted away. Only the part protected by the mailbox is still there, and I won’t be surprised when we find the box on the ground beside a spongy stump.

Birdhouse on a tree,
mailbox on a rotting stump:
a lonely campsite.

*

Hoarded Ordinaries

Yes, the bear’s mouth is wide open in the front, and that’s where your face sticks out. So it kind of looks like you’ve been swallowed by the bear & are looking out of its mouth, I guess.

The hockey fan’s face
half-swallowed by a foam bear,
roaring drunk.

*

Rurality

[photo]

The cut stem hardens,
taking a firmer grip
on the big pumpkin.

*

box elder

Then it seemed as though everyone in the northern hemisphere was photographing misty morning spiders’ webs, which was no reason not to do it myself, but I didn’t get around to it anyway. Now I’m wondering about blogging out of season, as it were, when the moment has passed, posting things after their ‘sell by’ date… I’m not sure.

The month-old photos
of dew on spiderwebs —
cobwebby now.

*

Eye in a bell

..waar komen ze vandaan? Reflecties van de ramen, of van de letters op de paarse vlag? Zijn ze een teken? Moet ik een staatslot kopen eindigend op 8? De 8ste trede van de trap overslaan als ik morgenochtend het perron opren?

Reflected light:
mysterious numeral 8s
on a shaded street.

5 Replies to “Like Kyogen’s stone”

  1. cobwebby, I like that
    and I wonder about outdated blogging alot, because I am always behind in posting. Perhaps a person could hold it till next year and get a jump on everyone photographing and blogging the red maple leaf? Like walmarts seasonal database?
    Dave, do you give this thought, or are you always within the “sell by” date of the season because you are just that good? : )

  2. Cady May – Thanks for the haiku!

    I don’t know. One option, of course, is to date the post from whenever the photos were taken – but then only people who read your blog through an RSS reader would see it.

    I don’t have a problem with posts in the past tense, essays of remembrance. I mean, let’s say you had a backlog of photos of this summer’s drought. An overview of that, posted now, wouldn’t seem at all strange, I don’t think, if you framed it right. It’s all in the writing. If bloggers are a kind of journalist, it’s up to us whether we want to do only breaking news, or also write features and retrospectives.

  3. This a.m. I was gathering leaves. As I reached to lift my leaf raker off the garage wall, the 3′ x 4′ piece of plywood my husband insistently balanced on my raker hooks fell and konked me on the head…

    Hard yet pliable,
    The head that was smitten
    Grew but one more lump.
    (or, Grew more lopsided.) ;-)

    I’m a new visitor. You are bookmarked!

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