Tag: poetry

rain

.Reading time 2 minutes.
my heart 
today 
has no words 
only rain

The above photo is of a short poem titled “rain” from a collection of poems I published last year. It’s designed to reflect both the way Japanese language is traditionally written—right to left and top to bottom—as well as the way rain itself falls.

After hearing of the recent tragic mass shooting of children at an elementary school in Texas, I’ve been searching for something to offer this world with its incomprehensible sorrows. Surely there could be even just a few words to lighten the burden, ease the pain, to bring some kind of solace… After all, my poetic raison d’être of sorts is: crafting stories for a more beautiful and gentle world. I intentionally seek to illuminate beauty, love and light, even in the midst of our suffering… particularly in light of suffering, in light of the shadows. Words are my gift to this world, the flower of my heart I offer upon the alter.

But in these past days of searching, words firmly elude me. The strength to pick up scattered shards of my heart, eludes me. My body breaks down when thoughts are senseless and prayers echo, empty—again. In this paralysis of humanity, the little children are dying. What words can possibly carry meaning now? And so I, empty-handed, crave the rain.

I crave the rain. Let it fall, in torrents. Tears for all the little children. May it flood, a river over embankments of ammunition…. ammunition forged in outdated weapon-making factories, and in the defenses of ideological identity and warfare. May it rain for seven days and seven nights straight so that even the most guarded among us will finally seek refuge in the arms of another. May the relentless downpour drown out delusions of grandeur and bring all the mighty gods to their knees. And in the very end, may all the little children delight in the puddles—splashing about and dancing—carefree. Rainbows overhead. In the very very end, may all the little children simply be—children.

your name

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
have you heard it before?
the land as it whispers
the voice of soft soil underneath
soles—bared to the earth
calling
calling out your name
in the wind in the wild wild wind
and singing
between canyon walls
and among the tall and slender reeds,
your name

Come, come home — it says —
into my arms stretched out open and wide, and into
my heart.

and i run
i run right into this wild wind
without resistance
as these whispers of land and soft sacred soil
singing
sing straight into my heart
and i run 
and run right into these waiting arms
into this heart
i run, i run and run and run
i run
home

nectar

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
do not try
not for a moment, not a heartbeat
not even for a second, split
to resist
even the multitudinous gods cannot
and absolutely care not
to resist
The Sweetness
Nectar
nectar is
honey on the tongue
diaphanous light like
diamonds underwater
sparkling
champagne for the immortals
and libations for
the hummingbirds and the butterflies
wine, for the soul

epilogue two

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
i dance to breathe
      and 
breathe to dance
             to fly
             to fly
to my sun
i dance
              in the light, and
on the light feather of the hawk
so swift   so soft   and so
f i e r c e 
  i fly
             to my sun burning
on fire
burning brightly
and,     oh so lightly
on these skins, these mountain skins
          and i breathe 
     i breathe
i breathe to dance 
                    dance to breathe
                                            here 
   between heaven and 
here
between heaven and this 
                                                                       earth

embodied

.Reading time 1 minute.
have you ever felt that?
Earth—in your body,
breathing...
a sweet sigh, and then a swift intake
what song does she sing
passing through your skin
your surface 
soft, light, and open 
dancing here
under this boundless sky?
to whom
or to what absolute and singular love
does she serenade?

The above “photo-poem” was made when I was still placing print on top of photos and unfortunately, I don’t have the original photo now. I also haven’t been able to recapture the same feeling—the same ineffable sensation of breathing—in another photo. But perhaps on some mysterious, sweet, and softly lit day, I will again find the perfect set of trees and sky, breathing.

Have you experienced something similar? A discovery of the world breathing through your body? Or your body breathing through the extended world around you? In this physically embodied realization of connection, we discover that we ourselves are love. Love itself. Nothing other than love. We discover oneness and totality, beauty and grace. Hózhó. An absolute and singular love.

Poesía

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
~purple dreams~

flickering in clouds
gold dust settles over these
hills
yawning and round 
and drifts into the shadows, all purple

the dreams are sweet
like plums heavy on their branches bowing
ripe and full
with love
with honey
with the scent of your name
with your whispers
all tangled in my wind-tousled hair

and with this heart
with this body
     my soul
like streams swollen after the storms in spring
rushes out into the open
into these unkept fields of golden dusk
and erupts into a riot of wildflowers, all purple
all yellow, white, pink, and
g o l d

京のコーヒー

.Reading time 2 minutes.
Kyoto Coffee                                                                            

flowers startle white
in the black night
caffeine-steeped 
 and camouflaged in
e   l e  g a n c  e    
 i awaken 
all  enchanted
the wild blossoms are singing 
light          
into         new   day .

I wrote the original version of this poem about three years ago, after enjoying coffee in an elegant cup at a café in Kyoto. After a long talk with a good friend, the night was late and I cycled back to my small, secluded-away in a quiet and dimly-lit neighborhood near ancient temple grounds in Higashiyama, house. Along the way, I was startled to encounter these white flowers glowing out of the darkness—similar to the white flower on my black coffee cup just a short while earlier. What magic potion had I just consumed, I pondered, in the guise of an elegant Kyoto cup of coffee? Little did I know then, just how truly magical and extraordinary our worlds can be. And I was entirely guileless as to the adventure I’d unknowingly embarked upon. But here I am now, three years later, still traversing these caffeine-steeped nights of enchantment. And what has emerged? Worlds of poetry, beauty, magic, and a precious love—like no other.

So what it the moral of the story?
Surrender to the irrational demands of your heart and of beauty, to this wild world far too vast to be contained within the narrow confines of our minds. And something more magical than you could have ever dreamed of will welcome you, on the other side of night.

smile

.Reading time less than 1 minute.
your smile just for me
more precious than all the stars
in darkest of nights

さくらさくら sakura sakura

.Reading time 1 minute.
singing in pink light
this crown of floating petals
carries my heart home

What is it for you, which carries your heart back to your faraway home? Be it geographical or temporal distance? Have you ever felt that? That twinge? That pang in your heart when the great distance announces itself abruptly, with such eloquence? Suddenly, in a moment, you are both here and there. Or rather, simultaneously there and not there.

For me, it is sakura*—the cherry blossoms. Their delicate lightness acquiring a new sense of gravity in a home away from home. Bittersweetness, in full bloom. And so still, i dance under the trees of pink reverie; drunk with beauty. Here and There. Everywhere.

*While the chrysanthemum may be the national flower of Japan and the seal of the imperial family, sakura—the cherry blossom—is without doubt, the national “people’s flower” of Japan. When sakura blossom in spring, many people enjoy walks or picnics and parties under the soft canopies of pink petals. Many years ago (before the date which it was published), I wrote another blog post which illuminates the significance of sakura in Japan: https://michiruadrienne.com/2021/06/02/grace/

airspace

.Reading time 2 minutes.
i dream skies clear blue
an airspace of love and peace
encircling one world

“You may say I’m a dreamer”, but in fact, what comes first: the dream or the day? Imagination or reality? Perhaps the difference between the two (dream and day, imagination and reality) is not so distinct after all—one bleeding into the other as our dreaming and waking worlds are nothing more than a continuum of one consciousness, of one stream in time and space navigating terrains all at once sublime, spellbinding, and atrocious.

“You may say I’m a dreamer”, but is it not the dream that gives rise to words articulated and actions initiated? And ultimately to that concept which we call “reality”—which is indeed precisely that, a concept, a conceptualization of the mind. It is the mind which dreams and thinks and creates. It is the mind, consciousness itself, which is the ultimate “reality”. We all dream; we are all dreamers—inevitably. So direct your dreams and your desires beyond what you have been taught is possible, beyond the visible horizon and into skies of clear blue.

“I see no conflict between reality and imagination. They are not in fact separate. Our real lives hold within them our royal lives; the inspiration to be more than we are, to find new solutions, to live beyond the moment. Art helps us to do this because it fuses together temporal and perpetual realities.”

~Jeanette Winterson