I wake up at 6am in darkness. If I sleep in to 7, my room will still be cloaked in darkness….Clementines….Christmas…associations from childhood drift into my head…and then I remember: today is winter solstice. In days to come the sun will linger a few minutes longer each day.
gifts of the sun…
figs, dates, nuts
all from afar away…
gold in the toe:
a Christmas stocking
mandarin orange
:
©️2018 Ontheland
a harsh domain of clay and shale…
only birds welcome
saplings planted with care…
one day a wild seed
becomes a Christmas tree
sparkling winter rain…
young juniper
rooted by the cedar stair
forest dreaming
:
©️2018 Ontheland
We shiver awake in late autumn
As the sun sleeps
we make breakfast and tea
Until the sky brightens
with solar glow
to light our way.
more dark than light
in this somnolent time
my lamp flickers
:
:
Note: I have combined a cherita with a haiku to create a “cherita haibun” for Carpe Diem #1544 which features “autumn lamplight” a kigo (season word) for Japanese haiku.
©️2018 Ontheland
haiku:
sun on a dull day
these sweet garden peppers
taste of summer
~
inverted cherita [1-3-2]:
travelling at sunset
a panoramic gallery
of chiseled autumn clouds
and colour flares
impairs my vision
with no blinding glare
~
©️2018 Ontheland
After a thunderous new moon night
A perfect golden disc
glows in the East like a harvest moon
It is then that I know:
the light trembling within grey clouds
whispered of a majestic morning sun.
:
A cherita is a six-line poem divided into units of one, two, and three lines. It is supposed to tell a story…For more information I would suggest thecherita.com.
©️2018 Ontheland
glowing
eyes near road edge
I apply the brakes
a baby raccoon,
then three squirrels
out to play on a mild winter night
~
My second cherita is a winter night driving story for Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #17: Out of the Carpe Diem Box. The Cherita challenges you to write a narrative with three ‘stanzas’ of one, two, and three lines. You will find more information about the form at the link above.
©2018 Ontheland
We starve
our homes razed
by airborne terror
I hear the roar
dust scorches my chest
Death missed again
~
© 2018 Ontheland
This is written in response to a radio interview this morning from Yemen. I was looking for a story to tell with a Cherita, a poetic form recently featured by Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. No poem large or small could capture this unfathomable situation…three years of a foreign-backed war, millions of lives and dreams destroyed:
…what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Since 2015, a Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States has been carrying out airstrikes in Yemen against Iranian-allied rebels.
The UN says the war has killed more than 10,000 civilians, displaced some two million people and pushed millions more to the brink of famine.
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