writing tanka
a writing tanka on writing tanka
stare at the blank page
intimidating or what
now just start writing
no matter what you put down
it will all come back to you
© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa, USA
September 7, 2013
WRITING TANKA—Preparing to Write
The recent blog post Redwood Forest Haiku, two versions, inspired by a photo my sister took in a Redwood Forest Park inspired other haiku.
Here’s one from GD
In Redwood forest
Giants standing grand and still
Holding the Silence.
Norman Zierold suggested changing the last line to my second version to Guarding the Silence.
In Redwood Forests
There are Giants among us
Guarding the Silence
Paul Stokstad sent two versions, the last one, i reminded him, required an extra syllable, which he added. It turned into a beautiful third haiku.
~1~
In redwood forests
there are giants among us
tall, holding silence
~2~
In redwood forests
there be giants, in silent
cathedral light
adding a missing syllable turned into
~3~
In redwood forests
there be giants, in silent,
soft, cathedral light
If you are so motivated, leave your version in the Comment section.
I signed up with Instagram so I could see the pictures my sister took on her vacation to Mendocino in Northern California. They drove north to Humboldt County to see the California Redwood Coast Park Forest. Among the beautiful photos she posted, this one of the Giant Redwoods, considered the largest trees in the world, inspired me to write this haiku. Here is that photo, and two haiku versions, for your enjoyment.
Redwood Forest Haiku
~1~
In Redwood Forests
There are Giants among us
Who Hold The Silence
~2~
In Redwood Forests
There are Giants among us
Holding The Silence
© Ken Chawkin
Fairfield, Iowa
written 8/23/2013
posted 8/24/2013
See Being in Nature, a gift from a tree, with links to other tree poems. See Redwood forest photo and haiku inspire others.
By Bill Graeser
Ansel Adams sits up
reaches for his camera—
his arm bony as a tripod leg
for it is “Magic Light”
the golden light of sunrise
and sunset.
But then he lays back down
and focusing instead
through the lens of his soul
in the black box of his skull
he sees… all the light
that ever filled Yosemite
or blazed the crosses at Hernandez
and with his brittle jaw
with its few teeth remaining
there in the dark room of a coffin
he smiles.
“Magic Light” by Bill Graeser won the Iowa Poetry Association’s 2012 Norman Thomas Memorial Award. Bill posted it August 28, 2012.
Congratulations, Bill, you deserve this memorial award for a memorial poem of the great Ansel Adams. I’m sure he’d approve, and be pleased! Visit https://www.anseladams.com for more amazing photos.
Another great poem by Bill Graeser is What You May Not Know About Frankenstein. I posted it as At last—the truth about Frankenstein.
Visit Bill Graeser’s website for more fine poetry and photography: https://www.billgraeser.com.
I found this detailed interview with Marc Silber and Michael Adams: An Inside Look at Ansel Adams’ Photography In Yosemite, posted April 10, 2013. (I also found this fascinating video posted by Silber Studios on Ansel Adams Most Famous Photograph: Moon Over Hernandez.) Marc is given a tour of the house and darkroom by Ansel’s son, Michael Adams. He was seven years old and with his father when he took the iconic picture of the moonrise over Hernandez and described how he created it. The music was composed by Andrew Buffett, the American musician, composer, author and philanthropist. Peter is an Emmy Award winner, New York Times best-selling author and co-chair of the NoVo Foundation. He is the youngest son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. Here is an earlier video posted by Marc Silber about advice on how to visualize your photos, from a rare interview with Ansel Adams: Photography Visualization Advice by Ansel Adams. Photo visualization was so important to Ansel Adams that he made it the first chapter of his book on photography. See more of Marc’s videos on Ansel Adams.
See CBS Sunday Morning: From the archives: Photographer Ansel Adams.
I Tell You
I could not predict the fullness
of the day. How it was enough
to stand alone without help
in the green yard at dawn.
How two geese would spin out
of the ochre sun opening my spine,
curling my head up to the sky
in an arc I took for granted.
And the lilac bush by the red
brick wall flooding the air
with its purple weight of beauty?
How it made my body swoon,
brought my arms to reach for it
without even thinking.
…………*
In class today a Dutch woman split
in two by a stroke – one branch
of her body a petrified silence,
walked leaning on her husband
to the treatment table while we
the unimpaired looked on with envy.
How he dignified her wobble,
beheld her deformation, untied her
shoe, removed the brace that stakes
her weaknesses. How he cradled
her down in his arms to the table
smoothing her hair as if they were
alone in their bed. I tell you –
his smile would have made you weep.
…………*
At twilight I visit my garden
where the peonies are about to burst.
Some days there will be more
flowers than the vase can hold.
~ Susan Glassmeyer ~
(The Incomplete Litany of Untold Stories) Published in Gratefulness.
In this interview, Ideas Live: Joy, November 2018, Susan Glassmeyer sets up the poem with the story behind it at 25:50, then reads I Tell You.
Susan Glassmeyer’s advice in the interview reminds me of what poet Mary Oliver said: “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”
Mary Oliver elaborated it in this 3-line poem: Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it.
Also see On Old Congress Run Road, a hauntingly beautiful poem by Susan F. Glassmeyer.
Read more of her poems in Sixfold Journal’s Poetry Winter 2015.
Susan Glassmeyer is the co-director of the Holistic Health Center of Cincinnati and has a private practice as a somatic therapist, specializing in the Feldenkrais Method®. She won a grant through Xavier University (Cincinnati) to complete work on a chapbook titled Body Matters.
On April 16, 2018, Susan Glassmeyer published Invisible Fish, a collection of new and previously published selected poems, including the two I love and posted—I Tell You and On Old Congress Run Road. She was also selected as the 2018 Ohio Poet of the Year. In March 2019, I purchased a signed copy directly from Susan. So glad I did. She has published two more books since then. To see a list of her publications and more, visit her website at www.susanglassmeyer.com.
I used to go for walks with a friend in Cates Park, located in Deep Cove, a little seaside village situated on the eastern edge of the District of North Vancouver, in British Columbia, Canada. In that park along the Burrard Inlet there is a walk called the Malcolm Lowry Walk, named after author Malcolm Lowry, who squatted in the park from 1940-1954 in a shack with his wife Margerie. He wrote much of his classic novel Under the Volcano there, which was later made into a movie. This short trail takes you through a forest path, past a children’s play area, then along the waterfront to a nice pebble beach with a view of Indian Arm.
On one walk, I noticed a bunch of smooth rocks along the roadside. I thought it was odd for these water-worn rocks to be by the road instead of on the beach. I began thinking of that childhood tune of sticks and stones breaking bones, and was drawn to one of the rocks. It spoke to me. It cracked me up with it’s cosmic sense of humor; I had to write it down. After I wrote the poem, I picked up the rock and took it home.
RIVER ROCK SPEAKS
Deep Cove River Rock
From the Road
Says its Thing
I’ve been Told
Make No Bones
About This
Of All Stones
I AM ONE!
© Ken Chawkin
Read Park Poems from Ken Chawkin for more stories and poems inspired from visits to other parks in the Greater Vancouver area.
I wrote a poem the first day on my job working for the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation as a paper-picker in Queen Elizabeth Park. It was in the mid-1990’s, during the wintertime. The job kept me active, walking miles each day, spent mostly in nature, in a beautiful park setting. And I made more money doing that than teaching kids writing after school at a Sylvan Learning Center in North Vancouver. It was what I needed at the time. But that’s a whole other story.
The park attendant would leave each year to go to California for the winter. Some friends who had done the job for him the previous winter introduced us. A fellow poet and a meditator (not TM), we shared common interests. He offered me the job and said I could stay in the caretaker facility he lived in across the street from Q.E. Park in Hillsdale Park. In exchange I would cover his utilities. I just had to get his boss’s approval, who did hire me, but wasn’t happy about the arrangement. He said there were people ahead of me in line for such a hard-to-come-by job. But it worked out well and he later hired me for the summer in Stanley Park when the caretaker returned from California.
I was lucky to get that prized job, doing simple work, like cleaning the park facilities and picking up trash. I also appreciated the beautiful park settings and composed poems as I walked the grounds. I actually amused myself that first day. I thought of how things grew from seed to tree, and their interrelationships with the animals. Dark berries turned white in winter and the birds who ate them caught my attention as I thought of the cycles in nature.
My inner child loved composing and hearing the sounds and meanings of the words. Every time I shared this poem with kids, they’d squeal with delight! Maybe the child in you will like it too.
NATURE’S BI-CYCLE
Berries are meant to be eaten by birds
who poop out the seeds contained in their turds
this process prepares seeds to sprout in the spring
’til one day they’re trees and in them birds sing
© Ken Chawkin
Read Park Poems from Ken Chawkin for more details on this story and other poems inspired from Q.E. Park and others I visited in the Greater Vancouver area.
Let’s remake the world with words.
Not frivolously, nor
To hide from what we fear,
But with a purpose.
Let’s,
As Wordsworth said, remove
“The dust of custom” so things
Shine again, each object arrayed
In its robe of original light.
And then we’ll see the world
As if for the first time.
As once we gazed at the beloved
Who was gazing at us.
~ Gregory Orr ~
(Concerning The Book That Is the Body Of The Beloved)
Listen to Gregory Orr read this poem at On Being.org
Other poems by Gregory Orr
Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved, a poem by Gregory Orr
