Tag: Haiku

Fifteen Delights

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 7 Comments

Happy May 1st everyone!

I wrote in yesterday’s post that I was going to follow the example of Writing from the heart with Brian and list the many things I enjoy. I hesitate to use the word love. Years ago I heard about a young woman who was enthusing about loving some thing when an elderly lady encouraged her to “Love something that can love you back.” That thought has stuck with me.

So here are fifteen outdoor things that are a delight to my heart. If you are an avid fan of nature like me, many of these things will delight you, too. 🙂

Pixabay

– The first dandelions brightening the lawn, heralding spring. (But only the first!)

– Hearing the winnowing of a nighthawk when on an evening walk

– A wren in a nearby tree singing his merry song over and over

– The gentle coo coo of a mourning dove in the morning as it bobs along picking at seeds

“For, lo, the winter is past…the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle(dove) is heard in our land…” Eccl 2:11-12

– Seeing rhubarb nubs coming up and remembering Jane Kenyon’s “rhubarb leaf, like a mad red brain, thinks its way up through loam.”

– Seeing wrens moving into the birdhouses I’ve set up for them

such a wee bird
sir wren – yet how fiercely
you scold that cat

– Discovering a toad in my flowerbed. I actually like the little guys and I know they’re helpful.

embarrassed by light
they wait for darkness
good works in secret

– The setting sun tinting the clouds pin and mauve

– Colorful butterflies flitting around, lighting on blooms and folding their wings.

– The satiny softness of tulip petals

– Hummingbirds zipping around our feeders

– Humming bird moths nectaring among the flowers at night

— Seeing the birds taking baths in the water basins I’ve set out for them

– Vees of Canada geese winging their way northwards

– When the Youth group sings for the seniors at the Villa on summer evenings, with the windows open, hearing the robins singing along
(Some may say this is pure coincidence, but when the youth – who sing acappella – blend their voices in a hymn, the nearby robins do seem to join in, full voice.)

The Pinch of Winter

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

Good morning everyone.
My journal entry for today will to be “Cold, Cold, and Dry.”

The moon’s almost full but sadly gives us no warmth. The thermometer reads -27 C at 5:30 am. I woke up early from a silly dream, so decided to get up and feed the cats, finish addressing Christmas cards, and now check out internet world.

The first thing I discovered is that we have no water. Not a drop from our taps. We get our water from a local well, so did the pump freeze up? Is it afflicted with some mechanical failure? I doubt the water line has frozen overnight; that hasn’t happened yet and it’s been colder than this.

Have you ever been without water for some reason? One of the first things I notice is that I get really thirsty. I suddenly want to drink lots. Good thing we always keep a Brita-filtered pitcher of water in the fridge so I can accommodate my thirst. And a Keurig machine to supply my coffee — or hot chicken broth — needs.

It doesn’t help that I have a cold and sore throat. Brought on by my own carelessness, I’m afraid. I’ve had a jigsaw puzzle around for awhile; it’s been at my workplace for a long time and I wanted to do it here at home before passing it on. The picture on the box is really nice, a restaurant-front in some Latin land, with attractive big blue doors and a flowering vine draping over. But the puzzle, when I started it Sunday afternoon, proved to be really difficult. By bedtime we barely had the frame and part of the doors together.

I didn’t smell anything while working on it, but yesterday morning I woke up with sinus trouble and a sore throat, my usual reaction to something that carries a bit of mustiness. Slowly I’m learning that I have to be really careful and air out books, papers, fabrics, anything that could be musty. Fresh air is good for almost everything.

I set it outside awhile yesterday morning and worked on it a bit longer, but it was giving me no pleasure so I tossed it. If I were getting paid by the hour, that would be another matter, but life is too short to spend hours on a pastime project I’m not really enjoying.

So I’d best get prepared to face the day now. Unless the pump problem is fixed pronto, we’ll have to fetch water from somewhere — maybe intrude on our children’s routine.

a pale cold moon
over the frigid prairie
chicken soup morning

That Old Thief

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 5 Comments

Good morning everyone. Cloudy, drippy day here in south-central Sask. Not rain, but the heavy mist that rolled in during the night has made everything damp. I think everyone’s wishing for a day of good steady rain, especially the farmers.

The seniors in our church decided to have a potluck supper yesterday evening and we were among the number enjoying the delicious meal. We were about 25 in all and every lady brought one large dish, so no lack of food.

Some ladies were asking me what I plan to do today to celebrate my 66th birthday. I have a specific goal — my birthday present to me: I want to work on Seasons of Gold until it’s done and ready to be published Saturday. My son-in-law has uploaded an improved cover image to KDP, so now I need to add the manuscript, then can view it all. Then let it sit a few days; there’s always some last minute, “Oh, I’d better add /change …”

Actually the whole file is put together except for maybe a few more images, and to go through and check the spacing of the lines. I don’t know what prompts Kindle Create to do what it does, but it tends to toss extra spacing in here and there. Not a whole extra line, which would be obvious, but .19 of an extra line. Enough that if you look close you can see this poem is a bit farther apart from its follower than the follower is from its follower. If you follow me. 😉

Re: images. I really like the little hand-drawn illustrations in some of my haiku books. Birds, cherry trees, all very old-Japan looking. You know the type:
Birds-abstract

However, I have often used images from Pixabay to illustrate my poems and want to use the same type for my e-book. I’m doing about one small image and three or four poems per page.

Having a sense of humor, I’d like to stick this one in, along with Bobby Burns famous words. I don’t know if I dare be this silly in a book of Japanese-style poetry, but a wry look at human nature is what senryu is all about. In fact, I suspect this picture would have given Issa a chuckle.
Eggs + RB Quote

The Ragtag daily prompt came through at 9:30 pm last night, giving me lots of time to think about a response to the prompt word THIEF. As I consider all these years that have slipped by and wondered, as so many others, “where the time has gone,” I thought of this verse, written by Scottish poet Harvey Scott:

I saw the old thief, Father Time,
Come hirpling down the road;
He had a sack upon his back,
Lost minutes were his load.
He opened it and showed to me
Not minutes, but a host
Of years, decades, a century
And more of minutes lost.
“I want to buy year,” I said,
“And I shall pay you well.”

“If this earth’s mould were finest gold,
To you I would not sell,
For I have minutes stolen from kings,
From Milton, Shakespeare, Bach.
How could you buy such precious things?
Your common gold is trash!”…
He tied his sack and said, “Farewell.
Young man, I’ve got my fee,”
For while I tried to make him sell,
He stole an hour from me!

Writing Delights

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 12 Comments

Writing is a delightful pursuit. As some great author once said, “It’s easy. You just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.”

And then there’s the joy of editing, which I’ve tried to capture in this senryu:

editor slings red ink
bloodied words fly here and there
novel shavings
🙂

Alas! Those days are long gone when writers handed their books to an editor and the editorial staff did the fixing. Now it’s up to the writer to have the manuscript error-free and print-ready. Which usually means hiring a freelance editor.

Self-Publishing Options:
Print-on-demand companies like Amazon make publishing a price-painless proposition. Download a pdf, hit publish, and you’re good to go.

Now comes the joy of marketing. If a traditional publishing company is selling your book, they expect hands-on involvement from you. If you’ve self-published with Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, or any similar company, your hands are the only ones working the Ads & Sales desk. Unless you have kin and friends who’ll help promote your book, you’re on your own.

Thankfully companies will help in small ways. I recently made a deal with PrairieView Press, the printer/seller of my children’s book, The Rescuing Day, to list it in a flyer they are sending out to bookstores.

Rescuing Day cover.jpg

Plus, I’ve just made an agreement with Amazon.com to do a special free book offer for my e-book, Silver Morning Song.

SMS Cover page
As you see in my side bar, my book will be free on Amazon.com this coming weekend, November 22 to 26. So if you enjoy my blog, with it’s mix of short fiction tales, poetry and micro-poetry, take this opportunity to get your free copy. Here’s the LINK.

NOTE: I wasn’t given the option to list this on Amazon.ca, so I’m not sure if you’ll find the FREE COPY listed there. If you’re a UK reader, I plan to make the same offer on Amazon.uk next month.

And of course, if you do pick up a copy, I’m really hoping you’ll leave an honest review on Amazon. Even a couple of sentences will help. Thanks much!

Of Fall and Fine Details

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 6 Comments

This morning from my kitchen window I noticed three birds clinging to a leafless branch on a treetop, the sight of which inspired this haiku:

how brave those three
birds still clinging —
facing autumn’s gale

Much as we might wish to cling to summer, autumn has definitely made its appearance in our land. The crops are coming off and the golden brown straw left to hold the soil in place; the maple trees are golden already. Nights are cool, and during the last few days we’ve gotten the rains we wanted.

Hopefully now the Fire Ban will be lifted in our township. For a few months now we haven’t been allowed to light any fires outdoors, including in BBQ pits and such. This month local volunteer firefighters have been called out to several grass fires started by balers as farmers were harvesting hay. Sunday Sept 2nd some of our firemen left straight from church, responding to a fire east of here. About 150 acres — half of it in standing wheat crop — burned, along with four round hay bales.

The hummers left us a couple of weeks ago. Last week the second batch of barn swallows came out of their nest to enjoy the clear blue skies. For the first few days the three newcomers played in the air above our yard, then ventured farther, touring the woods and coming back to roost at night. I was out just after supper together with the cats, and the swallows came buzzing around us. Obviously they weren’t happy seeing cats so close to their residence.

It’s been awhile since I posted anything significant but I decided that if I didn’t get something written I might develop chronic blog-atrophy.

It’s not that I haven’t been writing. In fact, I’ve spent hours at the computer this week commenting on other writers’ work. Last weekend I was investigating the possibilities for having my own short stories critiqued and came across a site called Critique Circle. It It looked interesting, so I signed up and started writing comments on the stories posted.

Basically, anyone may join, and post a story they’ve written once every two weeks — but first they must critique others’ stories. In fact the system works somewhat like that old song about working in the coal mines: you do one days’ work and the company store charges two days’ pay for your groceries. 🙂 I’ve gotten .5, 1, 1.5, and 2 credits for doing various critiques, but it cost me 3 credits to post my story. So participants need to keep writing critiques (of 300 words or more) if they want to post anything.

Which is quite fair, really. I’m not griping. This approach keeps people from “taking” without putting anything in. (And it suits me because I enjoy doing editing. 😉 I do try to be gentle, though.) The “rules state that “critters” shall be encouraging and helpful to new writers as well as more experienced ones. No “Your story is blah!” comments.

I’ve posted one flash fiction story already. The first critique I received dealt mostly with grammar and punctuation — some of which I would contest. The second was an overall “Liked the story.” The third one was worth its weight in gold! It was written by a fellow who’s had a number of short stories published in literary magazines and such. He really knows his stuff and pointed out half a dozen things I SHOULD HAVE seen myself.

The stories I’m working on now are for my upcoming book of flash fiction. And now that I’ve registered it and gotten the ISBN, I can post the cover I’ve chosen (from unsplash.com.) What do you think?

The next design issues: choosing a font style and “outside border or no?”

Abstract cover.all

Notices + Absences

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 3 Comments

I notice that the Ragtag Prompt word for today is ABSENT
and Fandango’s one-word prompt is BOUND
so let’s see what I can build on these words.

I’ve noticed the lack of visitors to the hummingbird feeder this morning and had just concluded that our three lingerers must have left us when one zipped by the window. I am surprised. I was sure they’d be bound for the sunny tropics by now.

Yesterday morning my husband flew away, bound for a committee meeting in Québec. I will confess I don’t sleep well when he’s absent; so many things seem to go bump in the night! And last night more things than usual were bumping because a thunderstorm blew in about 1 am. A few good cracks penetrated my deafness, keeping me on my toes instead of on my pillow. One boom woke Pookie, who leapt to his feet, startled, around 2am. That didn’t help me to relax! Good thing this is just a short absence — and I’m thankful to know our neighbours are looking out for me.

This morning I got an e-mail notice that the haiku I submitted to an e-zine aren’t going to be used. I was actually a bit relieved. Now I can go ahead and  post them on my blog — which is really why I wrote them. I’ve read some terrific haiku in the various e-zines, but at this point poetry and haiku are just enjoyable sidelines to my main focus as a fiction writer. I’m happy to pen some verses but don’t want to direct my efforts toward becoming known as a poet.

Another writer of short verse, Frank Prem, calls his blog Seventeen Syllable Poetry, saying he doesn’t want to restrict himself to the traditional haiku form. Not limiting yourself to one poetic form definitely has advantages.

He also has his main blog where he shares longer poems. One of his collections is about his backyard tenant, the Eastern blue-tongued lizard, or skink. I enjoyed these verses about his resident lizard so much that I wrote one of my own — with apologies, Frank. 😉

Frank had a skink that lived neighbourly
Frank watched the skink
and wrote poetry,
poems of love and poems of war
day-to-day skink life at Frank’s back door.

A skink self-sufficient, with no one to thank,
content in his solitude —
intriguing to Frank.
Poems aplenty from this versatile bard
inspired by the neighbourly skink in his yard.

And now I must go on and do some work “while yet it is day, because the night cometh” when I hope to actually get some sleep. 😉