Adversity

violets here and there

in the ruins

of the burnt house

Shokyu-Ni

————————————————

I don’t know

Nor maybe never will

Would it be preferable

For the house to burn to the ground

Or to be asked to leave

Once your man had gone

That banking, if that is all that is left

Where vegetation was cleared

Where smokestack fires were started

And so to the leaving, the grieving

Before another could, or would return

To plant a rise of flowers 

haiku mind

108 poems to

cultivate awareness 

& open your heart

is by Patricia Donegan

Forgetting the Self

rouged lips

forgotten—

clear spring water

Chiyo-Ni

———————————————————————

I too search

For the humanity of awareness

I too find my self

By going towards nothingness

And by reaching

The nothingness of awareness

I appreciate all and everything

Which my senses gift to me:

The sky becoming light

The bird taking flight

The flag flying vigorously

In the strong morning wind

I forget that

I have forgotten my self

But who am I

To say such a thing 

haiku mind

108 poems to

cultivate awareness 

& open your heart

is by Patricia Donegan

Transience

summer grasses—

all that remain

of warriors’ dream

Basho Matsuo

————————————————————-

The body’s pain is transient

And it has been so

For many years now

Walking on moorland trails

Or with one’s imagination

Alongside the Great Wall of China

In shoes where the toes

Are necessarily pinched and cramped

In the half-light of dawn

Yet not yet ever at war

Therefore all that may remain

Is the nothingness

Which exists

Between the warring factions

For do they not all aspire

To find the scents

Of spring

And summer’s grasses

Also to be waiting in the wings

For autumn and winter’s

Dark ladies of seduction

 

haiku mind

108 poems to

cultivate awareness 

& open your heart

is by Patricia Donegan

Compassion

don’t hit the fly—

he prays with his hands

and with his feet

Issa Kobayashi

——————————————-

We open the velux roof-light

So that the fly might escape

He has been trapped

In our warm writing space

Since who knows when

The writing room

Is also the meditation room

Where we compassionately convert

Anxiety and frustration

Into pace and harmony

The same room is also an adults playroom

Where clay is moulded by hands

Where feet tap to the music

Where once there was a stable

And now life itself is born

 

haiku mind

108 poems to

cultivate awareness 

& open your heart

is by Patricia Donegan

Honesty

I kill an ant

and realize my three children

were watching

Shuson Kato

------------------------------------------

Honestly

I do understand the need to kill

Even if upset is caused

I myself have a distant feeling of hurt

When, as a child

I witnessed kittens being drowned

Yet I thought nothing

Of trampling underfoot

Whatever lay on the forest floor

I could claim innocence or naivety

But I won't do that

For I know it not to be entirely honest

Because, in my early teenage years

I worked, actively participating

In a slaughterhouse

Should I have told you that

Or remained silent about my past

In which case where would lie the continuum line

Honestly, the children have all grown

Each retaining their own perspective, which

I hope they realise, I am, and have been watching