the ramblings of a perambulent and often distracted sojourner
When one feels the urge to write
Yet thoughts refuse to form
And sense retires in spite,
One takes such as the norm
And lifts the pen in hope
Of catching what flies by
While making wide one’s scope
And snaring what is nigh.
And so a poem is born
Raw and gasping for air
Lying lost and forlorn
Seeking to avoid despair
But now it’s here right on the screen
Behaving like it’s always been.
This is a Shakespearean sonnet using the line structure ABABCDCDEFEFGG
Last day of old year
Dawns with tired resignation
Holding her dry breath –
Desiring the calendar
to turn a shiny new page.
Image by NoName_13 from Pixabay
A tanka is an ancient form of Japanese poem – the first two lines describe an experience; the third is a kind of pivot that leads into the last two lines that express a deeper or more transcendental meaning. The strict syllable pattern is 5/7/5/7/7 (not always observed.)
You’re the voice, try and understand it
Make a noise and make it clear, oh, woah
– John Farhham
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament will be held before December 2023.
Image by Thomas Wolter from Pixabay
– ABC News
A friend observed that there’s not much point to a Voice unless someone is listening. We often don’t listen well because we are so intent on making our own Voices heard. We have our agendas and we are anxious that they not be lost. This in itself becomes an obstacle to listening.
Listening is intentional. It is also vulnerable. We may not like what we hear. Intentional listening may expose us to the need to make some changes – even abandon some precious notions of who we are. Listening is a courageous act.
Collect
O still small Voice, shout loud enough that I may hear Your wisdom through the cacophony of daily distraction, and that I may turn my attention to using my ears and mouth in the proportion with which they have been gifted to me.
Haiku
Listen to the Voice
Bulldozing old certainty
To make a new road
An urge to scrawl
Calls from deep within
Riding waves of ennui
Over the will to begin!
Something stirs
Through my fog of
Indolence
Carpe Diem!
Speaking in Haikus
To the one who sleeps and dreams
Prodding the poet
Cinquain
Precise, disciplined
Challenging, digging, questing
Pulsing, poetic, pulchritudinous, promise
Elucidation
Diamante
Ice-cold sharp
Sparkles entices attracts
Carbon baseball jewel carat
Shapes cuts slices
Clear lucid
Gem
A couplet to awaken the poet
Who is present but is pressed to show it.
To taste and see that all is well
And even to engage the sense of smell
One must listen to the inner voice
And touch imagination’s words of choice
Image by Sophie Janotta from Pixabay
That lull in the lazy week between Christmas and New Year invites a somewhat indolent review about all sorts of things – including this blog’s “on again/off again” appearance. I’ve just finished messing with some WordPress themes to sharpen its look. I’m still faced with the question “What is it for?” I’ve used it now for a number of years, starting from the time blogging was the all-new rage for expression on the web through the time it was thought to have run its course.
In some ways, the blog has served as a journal, a more public expression for processing thoughts and ideas, ranging from the whimsical to the serious. This has been entirely separate from my private journaling. It was never meant to garner a wide readership, but I have been grateful to see comments, statistics and feedback that suggest my writing resonates with some.
In redesigning the theme, I’ve decided for now to keep it clear of categories, menus and widgets. I want to keep it as simple as possible and my mind jumps around too much to keep consistency with such things. So there will be a mix of rambling commentary, poetry, prayers and other such things, perhaps only identifiable by tags if I remember to apply them.
I have one or two books I’m drafting and this could well be a practice board for writing them. I used a gift voucher yesterday to buy some titles I thought might inspire my writing, so we’ll see how it goes.
I’ll complete this as has been my habit lately with a Collect and a Haiku. The idea of composing Collects arises from a recent workshop with Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama. A Collect is a summary expression offered to the Creator using a thematic titular form and that includes a petition and a thanksgiving. A Haiku is a strict 5/7/5 three-line verse that comments, sometimes ironically, on a thought, feeling or experience.
Collect
O Silent Communicator Who inspires our words, grant us the capacity to forge words of steel that heal and build, that the stories we share might bring illumination and understanding to the Grand Story with which You fill our being.
Haiku
Why do I write blogs
Casting words to the ether?
It makes sense to me!
Well, there they are – Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love!
Perhaps the most challenging has been Joy, associated yesterday with the Gospel of Matthew’s focus on troubled Joseph’s angelic visitation commanding him to proceed with his betrothal to the strangely pregnant Mary. Thus the introduction of Brené Brown’s phrase “foreboding joy” – the sense that yes, there is something big to embrace, but get ready for struggle along the way – the call to engage vulnerability with gratitude.
Collect
O wounded One who engaged human life in fullness knowing the journey ahead, grant us the courage to embrace the full panorama of our human experience with gratitude and abandonment, that we may know the depths of your joy.
Haiku
Hail foreboding joy
Grasping fast the thorny rose
Gifting aroma
Half-way through self-enforced isolation, this is proving a more interesting journey than the first (about nine months ago). More aches, more sleep, more sookiness. But today seems to be turning a corner – energy returning, focus longer lasting, aches subsiding. Glad I qualified for the antivirals – they’ve certainly kicked in. What might a suitable Collect and Haiku look like?
Collect
O Sustainer who tears down to build up, keep correcting and adjusting that in the Universe that is dissonant and out of balance, that the birth of your purpose may reach its perfect conclusion.
Haiku
Another life form
The virus seeks rightful place
But it is not here.
Local media is leading a lament on the scarcity of chips. WA pubs can no longer guarantee these sides with the Parmy this side of Christmas. Massive floods and a broken supply line in the East have dried up the supply of potatoes – so chips and crisps are off the menu. (Mind you, bare supermarket shelves tell us many other staples have temporarily disappeared as well)
Hence today’s Collect and Haiku:
Collect
O Great Provider who sent manna to the Children of Israel in the Wilderness. Grant us the sense of proportion to realise how well we remain fed in a world that is hungry. Transform this realisation into compassion that is motivated to share what we have with others. In this is your Glory revealed.
Haiku
No spuds to make chips
So easy to blame supply
Why not grow our own?
I’ve reached the stage in life where one is advised to monitor one’s blood pressure. The ancients viewed the red fluid coursing through our bodies as the source of life – a lifestream as it were. It’s something to contemplate as one slips on the cuff and listens to the whirr of the pump.
It deserves a Collect and a Haiku.
Collect
Source of All Life, pulsing and throbbing your love-power through all Creation.
May my coursing lifestream synchronise with the rhythm of your flow
so that your Way may be unfolded without obstruction and your glory revealed.
Haiku
Blood pressure machine
Hooked to my receiving arm
Telling out my life
The church service act of “passing the peace” had a different slant as we exchanged clay tokens resembling doves. These had been created by the family of those conducting the service. My “dove” was decidedly different – it looked like a hybrid of some kind of bird and my country’s unique monotreme – the platypus. “Passing the peace” became something like “passing the pieces” of the chaos that often overtake our lives. Hence the following “collect” (thank you for the inspiration, Pádraig Ó Tuama) and haiku.
Collect
O Great One who formed the Universe from the Chaos of the Void.
Gather our pieces and make them whole. May the beauty of that which makes us unique in our diversity point to your all-embracing love and grace so that we may know our completeness in You. Amen.
Haiku
Clay thing in hand
Whispering a call to peace
Grace of the Other
Wondering Pilgrim 