Summer Holiday Haikus

-
Work stops. Time expands. 
Days fill with chores and planning.
Tasks end. Holidays!

Water laps the shore. 
Boats roar past. Breezes blow cool.
Hours become days’ fun. 

Sleep. Eat. Read. Repeat. 
Everyday holiday. Good. 
Every day. The best. 

Two-legged or four 
Find rhythm in the doing.
Nothing can be all. 

Sun bright. Sky blue. Heat.  
Berries ripened red get picked.
Days long. Nights cool. Bliss. 

Clouds build to thunder.
Rains cannot quench deep ground’s thirst.
Flies buzz in the heat. 

Time slows and thoughts grow:
What if? Let’s! Why not? Do it! 
All is possible.

Creative Arts Camp
Painting. Writing. Collaging. 
Crafts for adults. Fun! 

One of my collages: Paths and pathways

Val's painting, based on photos from her travels through the desert many years ago

Anne writing (with Holly showing excellent support...)





Comments

  1. AnnJuly 23, 2019 at 6:25 AM

    Woke up four a.m.
    Toby and Penny coughing.
    Bordatella day

    ReplyDelete
  2. Zach SchnitzerJuly 23, 2019 at 10:02 AM

    What a beautiful collage and painting!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJuly 23, 2019 at 10:41 AM

    Amanda, I love your haikus. My favourites are the "Sun bright. Sky blue" one, and the "Clouds build to thunder."

    Wonderful to see everyone's art at this creatively yet calmly buzzing summer place!

    ReplyDelete
  4. PamelakatJuly 23, 2019 at 4:00 PM

    Amanda, I love your haikus. My favourites are the "Sun bright. Sky blue" one, and the "Clouds build to thunder."

    Wonderful to see everyone's art at this creatively yet calmly buzzing summer place!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated. Please be respectful.

Popular posts from this blog

Listening for the piano / Thinking about grief

-
Image
Grief is not a land in which I have travelled much, though I routinely explore it via others’ experience. I am drawn to do this as a student is drawn to the masters: To observe, to sit with, to wonder if those others’ experiences might help prepare me for my own when I find myself in that place. Will it? Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski mystery series, says that the grief over her long-time husband’s death hit her like a grand piano falling out of the sky onto her head. There is no pre-mourning, she says. Nonetheless, I persist in my studies: Memoirs of loss. Stories of grief. Tales of survival. I sit with those experiences. The words, the feelings, the anguish wash over me. And I ask myself: Will the sun rise tomorrow? Will I see it when it does?  Should I worry about this? Should I just expect, presume that what has always been will always be? Absurd. It will not always be. The loves of my life are all older, are all old. 95, my mother. Almost 80, my partner. 16, my cat.
Read more

Life story: I am from...where? who? what?

-
Image
The Le Rougetel family circa 1965: Anne, Charles, Amanda, Katy, Colin I recently attended the celebration of life for a friend’s father who had died at 95. The service was bright with song and lively with memories, and it got me thinking about how we wrap up a life with stories. Stories of fun and adventure, success and achievement, of impact and wisdom. Or maybe stories of hardship and pain, of loss and lack, of hard luck and sorrow. Or, likely, a mix of all that. Regardless, at the end, we celebrate a life in story. It got me thinking about how my story might be told when my end comes. That’s a long way off, I hope, but in the meantime, I pulled out an activity that Deborah and I have used in one of our writing workshops . It’s a variation on the “I am from…” prompt developed by George Ella Lyon , and it’s surprisingly thought provoking. It asks you to dig ever deeper about where you are from — while the cheap answer is Toronto (city where I was born), the richer, more valuable answe
Read more

If pride comes before a fall, what comes after disappointment?

-
Image
Disappointment is not something any of us aim for, I’m sure. The very last thing I ever want to be told by someone is that they are disappointed in me. But this week, I have been very disappointed in others. Life goes on, but that niggling thread of “if only” and “why could it not have been different” lingers in the corners of my mind. Last week’s lightening-quick sale of our cottage ended in disappointment all round when the deal fell through at the final hurdle. The details are not what matter here; what matters is that age-old life lesson about counting your chickens before they’re hatched and sharing good news before it is fully rooted and secured. But who among us has not jumped the gun? Presumed that all would go as promised, as planned? Believed in the goodness of people and trusted that the story would unfold as it had begun — smoothly, seamlessly, successfully? Ah, well. Sometimes it just doesn’t. So we find ourselves at a new beginning, with a different round of showings and
Read more