i took Sali to her dental appointment last Friday. While waiting for the dental hygienist to come in and clean her teeth, I told Sali what she meant to me, and distilled it down to this simple haiku.
Sweetheart Haiku
The sweetness in you
Brings out the sweetness in me
Why you’re my sweetheart
© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa
July 15, 2016
I sometimes get depressed seeing what’s happening to my sweetheart over time. She has dementia and lives in a care facility.
I keep my feelings in and don’t burden people with them. Only talk favorably about her. But sometimes I have to write them down. It’s one way to deal with an emotional reaction to a worsening situation. There may be more going on, but I am not always privy to such spiritual transformation.
Writing offers relief. By expressing what I’m feeling, I objectify my feelings in words and no longer hold them in. Then I can rework the words into a poem, and an introduction. This creates a kind of satisfaction. It gives me something else to focus on, and lightens the emotional load.
Hopefully, it will ease the hearts of those carrying a similar burden, should they read this. And maybe inspire them to do the same.
The Curse of Dementia
On watching a loved one diminish before your eyes
This passing of time
Is too fast for comfort
You’re changing but not
Getting any better
As I get used to this
Diminished form of you
I forget who you used to be to me
But this is nothing compared
To what you have lost
Yet who is happier
Mortality marches on
Until it will fall off
This cliff called life
© Ken Chawkin
May 29, 2016
Fairfield, Iowa
Related: An Unwanted Guest | Dementia Blues | Teapot Poem
As I was about to get into my car after visiting Sali at Parkview Care Center, I noticed a sweet aroma. Walking on the lawn towards the willow tree I looked around and noticed lilac bushes in full bloom. Their wonderful perfume inspired this haiku.
Lilacs are lovely
Their perfume sweetens the air
Harbingers of Spring
© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa
Written May 12, 2016
Posted May 14, 2016
Teapot Poem
This teapot, a gift for you,
sat on your kitchen table.
Later, we shared it, together.
Now, it sits alone, with me.
© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa
May 1, 2016
Scroll down to Responses (5th) to read how this poem came about.
My son Nathanael recently moved to the Santa Barbara Riviera and would send me photos of the view from his home. One early misty morning he posted a surreal photo taken from his balcony. It inspired this Santa Barbara Riviera Haiku.
Nathanael had invited me to see for myself how special it is to live there. When I arrived a few days ago, I was struck by the beauty of the place. As I entered the gated property, I sensed a stillness, and noticed the artistic landscaping filled with all kinds succulents and flowering bushes.
As I approached the front steps, I was literally stopped in my tracks, by an overwhelming floral scent. After recognizing it, I had to write a Threshold Haiku, and took a photo of the entrance way to go with it.
Once inside, I was overwhelmed again, this time by the view from his living room window. It looks out onto the city, the ocean and neighboring Channel Islands, topped by an expansive blue sky. Now I knew what he meant. The view is spectacular! The colorful natural scenery is constantly changing. At night the lights of the city and the stars create a different picture. It’s all very relaxing. You don’t want to leave.
Today I told him how lucky he was to be in this place, in such an incredible location. It’s like living in a painting. He said he had spent time exploring the different Santa Barbara neighborhoods, and was immediately drawn to Toro Canyon, Eucalyptus Hill, and the Riviera. Here’s a picture of the view that inspired yet another short poem.
You’re living in a painting
In the eye of the artist’s
Object of adoration
©Ken Chawkin
Santa Barbara
April 18, 2016
——————
A bit of history
I remembered the first time I came to Santa Barbara, in April 1974, an exotic welcome relief from the cold Canadian winter. I was a student at MIU, based in a temporary campus in Goleta. The university had rented an enclosed apartment complex. After a few months an actual college campus was purchased and we all moved to our permanent home in Fairfield, Iowa. Those were exciting days. We were pioneers!
The most recent time I was in Santa Barbara was in the summer of 2012 on my way to Greg and Britta Reitman‘s wedding in Ventura. Miriam Kasin, a friend who was living in Santa Barbara at the time, showed me around town for a few days before we drove to the wedding, where we had a fabulous time.
Yesterday, Nathanael took me to see the facility where MIU, now MUM, started in Goleta. That was 42 years ago! The place looked the same, but obviously different. I had turned 30 at that time, 5 years younger than Nathanael is now. By the time I was his age, I would already be married and he would be born a year later. And here we were, together sharing a part of my early history. What a difference a generation has made, thanks to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi!
Central courtyard where MIU had set up campus in Goleta, California
For my birthday, Nathanael took me to The Boathouse at Hendry’s Beach for lunch. While waiting for our food I received a phone call from an unfamiliar caller. Here’s what happened.
This haiku was inspired by the overwhelming scent of jasmine that greeted me as I crossed the threshold to my son’s home in the Santa Barbara Riviera.
Threshold Haiku
Before entering
The threshold to my son’s home
Pillars of jasmine
©Ken Chawkin
Santa Barbara
April 15, 2016
See more beautiful views to and from Nathanael’s Santa Barbara Riviera home that inspired another short poem.
Two and a half years later while visiting my son again I wrote another haiku about those same plants: Late Autumn in Santa Barbara.
My son takes photos of the changing panorama before him throughout the day and night looking out from the hills of the Santa Barbara Riviera. Today he posted this beautiful early morning image on Instagram. It inspired this haiku.
Photo by Nathanael Chawkin
Santa Barbara Riviera Haiku
mystical seascape
white waves rolling in to shore
morning mesa mist
© Ken Chawkin
February 13, 2016
See a haiku, Translation, inspired by a painting of Egrets by Australian artist Gareth Jones-Roberts. The poem was published in two poetry anthologies. Nathanael also likes that combination so I’m mentioning it.
About 6 years earlier, Nathanael had lived in San Leandro as an uchideshi. I had visited him there and witnessed his Sensei demonstrating Aikido, which inspired this tanka, My Son’s Sensei. Someone posted it with a tree that reflected the image in the poem. Nathanael happened to be visiting the dojo and sent it to me. Perfect fit!
While feeding Sali lunch today I whispered in her ear that she radiates goodness and joy. It is her inner nature. It shows in her smile, no matter what changes she’s going through with the illness. Whether they know it or not, it’s the main reason the staff love Sali. Why I love her.
Later in the day, as I was washing my hands, those thoughts came back to me. I composed them in my head as a haiku, then stretched it out to a tanka, and immediately wrote it down. It has a Zen-like quality to it.
Sali’s essential nature
so it’s down to this
no mind, just bliss, and a smile
essential nature
that’s why everyone loves you
you radiate what we are
© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa
Jan 5, 2016
I also told her about the eternal nature of love, of our love. Circumstances may change—we get old, sick, and die, but that part of us goes on, is eternal. I do believe that love is our essential nature. If we reincarnate, come back, we look for it, for that person who radiated it, reflected it back to us, with whom we shared the unifying fulfilling magic of a more enlightening love.
The Gita says, Karma is unfathomable, but I add, Love is eternal, and transformational! See Coming Back For Love In Five Favorite Romantic Films, especially the first and last films on the list.
See William Stafford—The Way It Is, including the Vedic expression I added. It extends the poem’s theme to its ultimate spiritual conclusion.
The popular TMhome.com website publishes a range of beautifully presented articles and interviews on the Transcendental Meditation technique and the people who practice it. They looked back and created a list of their TWENTY-FIVE MOST POPULAR POSTS of 2015.
We made it into the list twice—yours truly (14) and a documentary on Maharishi I facilitated (10), along with a mutual friend, Valerie Gangas (22) and her book, Enlightenment Is Sexy!!!
Well-known supermodel Miranda Kerr (23), Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma (17), business leaders, athletes, the DLF Change Begins Within gala (16) including singer Katy Perry, and TM teachers are listed, along with MUM alumna, singer and mystical poet Lyric Benson Fergusson (7), and former Japan PM Yukio Hatoyama (#24) who delivered MUM’s commencement speech. The telomerase study ranked high (3), and the top post was an interview with Cameron Diaz. The last one is a list of 12 great quotes on creativity. Here are the three I mentioned first.
14
22
This week I went to my local Fairfield bank and picked up two copies of next year’s 2016 calendars for Sali and me. The pictures selected for each month were beautiful artistic photographs of local nature scenes. I recognized three of the photographers, friends of mine.
As I was showing and describing the pictures to Sali, one of them caught my eye and I was inspired to write a haiku, which happens around her! After many versions, here’s what I finally came up with.
Nature’s Jewelry
A haiku based on a photograph by Jim Davis
tiny drops of dew
strung along a spider’s web
bright pearl necklaces
© Ken Chawkin
December 10+11, 2015
Fairfield, Iowa
Jim Davis, the photographer and a longtime friend, gave me permission to include this spider web photo from the First National Bank calendar, sponsored in part by the Jefferson County Trail Council. It was used for the month of May, Sali’s birth month. You can see more of his beautiful photographs in the calendar, if you have access to it. Visit his website: Jim Davis Images.
I asked Jim when and how he was able to take such a magical picture and he explained it this way:
The conditions for such a photo generally occur in late August and early September. It is an intersection of more spider webs due to onset of fall and warm days with cool nights creating early morning dew that drops off as the heat rises. Within those few days where the dew is created, there is the rare time when the air is still and the webs do not move. Without perfectly still air the dew drops would appear blurry or out of focus.
I turned the calendar upside down and noticed what appears to be Jim’s head and hat reflected in the large clear dewdrop under the leaf. He confirmed it saying his image would appear upside down in the drop.
Enjoy this other nature post and poem: The magic of fireflies is captured in this beautiful short film by @MaharishiU alum Radim Schreiber.
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