midwinter
the roving sun touches
the Ash by our house
long shadows on the snow
tracing its range far below
.
.
©️2019 Ontheland
The November with Basho excerpt for Day 18 features a sacred mountain reflected in a lagoon and a wading crane, a mystical bird in Japanese lore. Basho’s haibun and a recent post by Suzanne led me to consider the symbolic qualities of the ash tree behind my house, shown in this photo taken three days before Solstice (a.k.a. midwinter).
Ontheland 
A very personal seasonal Tanka Janice and so full of imagery with a stunning photo..
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I love your tree. I like the way you have likened the shadow to deep roots.
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Thank you, Suzanne. I love our one deciduous tree and now even more, seeing it as a ‘Tree of Life’.
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I thought about your photo later. Ash trees often have two trunks that split close to the ground like yours. In ancient celtic regions they used to pass babies through the gap between the trunks to bring good luck to them.
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Wow! Thanks for passing that on Suzanne about passing a baby between the twin trunks of an ash as a blessingu. I guess my lack of confidence in knowing the tree as an ash was that I’ve never ‘met’ one before. It’s different with other trees you grow up knowing and naming with other people. Identification through little books and websites often feels tentative to me.
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