Trekking down to the compost bin in the pre-winter landscape I encounter tiny branches of thyme and lavender—remaining where all else has withered. I bow, remember this summer, the succession of wildflowers, such joy!
passion here
days before snowfall
sweet-scented stems
©2017 Ontheland
~
In response to post of Chèvrefeuille: Carpe Diem #1317 wherever your heart is.
How would we
reshape this
“sorry scheme of things?”
Five flies lie dead on a sill
fifty birds chatter on a wire
eight skeletons wash ashore
Cats fight, spill blood
wash, groom, share body heat
brothers by fate
Faults and perfections
intertwined
love, fate, cruelty
©2017 Ontheland
~
The quoted words are from Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward FitzGerald:
Ah Love ! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits – and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire !
This quatrain, from Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, is featured by Carpe Diem #1315 Scheme of Things.
we glide the chess board
from dark to light
castles rise and fall
~
©2017 Ontheland
Photo credit: Pixabay
~
Life as a game of chess is a metaphor often used in past centuries:
‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
© Omar Khayyam (Tr. FitzGerald)
This is my response to Carpe Diem #1308 — A Game of Chess.
Sometimes when we look for one thing we find something else or when we are not looking at all a transformaton occurs.
~
Not seeking wonder,
we pass a pack of coywolves
strolling down the road
~
mirage
veil of mystery
dissolving
~
©2017 Ontheland
My haiku are inspired by the above quatrain from The Rubaiyat and Carpe Diem #1305 No Key.
In this quatrain Omar Khayyam attempts to comprehend life and our place in the universe. He regards death and human fate as mysteries he cannot decipher. His pondering highlights our human predicament—awareness that death of our physical bodies is certain. Birds on the other hand are free of such thoughts:
at sunrise
birds praising their Creator
without questions
© Chèvrefeuille
at sunrise
a human being
welcomes dawn
gazes at the sky
wonders about life
©2017 Ontheland
My tanka is in response to the above quatrain from the Rubaiyat and to the haiku by Chevrefeuille. Carpe Diem #1304 The Seventh Gate.
~
on the wind
wilted petals float away
sleeping bulb remains
~
all that’s left
crinkled brown scuttling
over the lawn
~
certainty
in nature’s mirror –
transience
~
words moving my pen
forward and back
looking for wisdom
~
©2017 Ontheland
“Ah! my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
Today of past Regrets and future Fears –
Tomorrow? – Why, Tomorrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years.”
© Omar Khayyam (Tr. FitzGerald)
~
Thinking about this quatrain, I wrote two haiku and a shadorma:
~
lines we write
fill pages like cups
cares take flight
~
melodies
lighten heavy hearts
sips of joy
~
I want to
know the cup that clears
all regrets
all terror,
live in a Flow of being,
taste the depth of Now
~
©2017 Ontheland
Many thanks to Chèvrefeuille who has been providing posts that illuminate Rubaiyat quatrains of 12th century poet Omar Khayyam. Today I respond to Carpe Diem #1232–past regrets and future fears. I am also appreciating Shadorma November, a community opportunity to explore the shadorma, a poem of 6 lines of 3-5-3-3-7-5 syllables.
in the wind
every song ever sung
faint vibrations
quiver for eternity
rustle branches in the trees
~
immanent
in the clay, wind, dew,
fire aching–
seen, unseen
transmutations travel time,
stars to earth to bone
©2017 Ontheland
A tanka and shadorma inspired by Carpe Diem #1301–River’s Lip, an episode in Carpe Diem’s Rubaiyat Another Way series. Each episode in this series offers interpretations, reflections and related poetry. Below are the featured Rubaiyat quatrain and other poems from the prompt post:
And this delightful Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River’s Lip on which we lean –
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!
© Omar Khayyam (Tr. FitzGerald), from The Rubaiyat
(river’slip refers to the river bank)
~
There’s not one atom of yon earth
Butonce was living man;
Nor the minutest drop of rain,
That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,
But flowed in human veins.
©Percy Bysshe Shelley, from Queen Mab
~
on river’s lip
hyacinths, grasses and other herbs
kisses of life
© Chèvrefeuille
thistles underfoot
spiked leaves of sharp minds
wise people buried here
herb foragers, healers
thorn plant whisperers
©2017 Ontheland
~
This tanka is from musings that sometimes come up as I see thorn leaf rosettes and full grown thistles in the field around my house. It hints at and was inspired by Carpe Diem #1300–The Rose, another episode in Carpe Diem’s Rubaiyat, Another Way series. The featured quatrain from The Rubaiyat:
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.
© Omar Khayyam (Tr. FitzGerald)
The thistle photo is from Pixabay.
« The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes – or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two – is gone »
© Omar Khayyam (Tr. FitzGerald) from The Rubaiyat
Two haiku for Carpe Diem’s Rubaiyat, Another Way:
triumphs fade
caught by my mitten
a snowflake melts
~
ice cream cone
every lick a pleasure
so fleeting
~
©2017 Ontheland
Ontheland 
