unable to fade,
here in drawn glass
blue morning glories
a bright young voice
“this one is real–
it has to be!”
New England asters:
the dust of an autumn
roadside
she comes for a look,
Pekingese under her arm–
both a little bored
a botany student
carefully noting down
all the scientific names
an evening moth
visits the bachelors-button
forever
About a year and a half ago, I put up these haiku signs–two on Kathryn Sreet and one on Cortez on Santa Fe’s westside.
The haiku is by Chiyo-ni, a medieval Japanese woman poet. Translation by Miriam Sagan and Isabel Winson-Sagan. Design, fabrication, and installation by Tim Brown and Isabel Winson-Sagan.
As is always the case, things happen around an installation.
One warm evening, I was called over to a group of old timers chatting on my block.
“The sign is because you’re Jewish,” one said.
My immediate neighbor didn’t agree. “It’s because she’s a poet!”
“But why do you say Jewish,” I wanted to know, because I am.
“Because the Jewish holidays are on the new moon,” he insisted correctly.
I don’t know where this knowledge came from, but New Mexico has its crypto-Jews. And its interdenominational friendships.
Other neighbors have a gorgeous orange wall that highlights their harvest of tomatoes, free to all. We call them “The Wall.” They call us “The Sign.”
The thrashers enjoy perching on it.
A translation from the Chinese by Arthur Sze of the poem “Moonlight Night” by Tu Fu:
this evening in Fu-chou my wife
can only look out alone at the moon.
From Cha’ang I pity my children
who cannot yet remember or understand
Her hair is damp in fragrant mist.
Her arms are cold in the clear light,
When we will lean beside the window
and the moon shine on our dried tears?
Permission Slips by Miriam Sagan
How many elements?
Compose a still life.
Who filled this bowl with sand?
Touch low tide.
Do objects or feelings have anti-gravity?
Shake the dice.
Can doubles exist together?
Pretend to take a sip.
How many seeds in the pomegranate?
Descend immediately.
Is a suitcase a diorama?
Open the book.
Is the blue pyramid water?
Stack things up.
Does THIS stand for THAT?
Draw closer.
Is the souvenir the honeymoon?
Pick your favorite.
Who spilled the wine?
Surprise yourself now.
Is the fear at the center or edges?
Prepare to exit.
What doesn’t fit?
Add something.
How close do you need to be?
Both show and tell.
How are you not random?
Rattle something.
Which one is real?
Draw a line in the sand.
What starts with the letter A?
Express your happiness.
Where is it red?
Count the grains.
Is it edible?
Listen for synesthesia.
Does God play dice?
Shake more than two dice.
Does the astrolabe tell fortunes?
Use Occam’s Razor.
Was it an idea that shattered?
Re-arrange your shards.
PLAY OR DICE
SAND * CLAY * RAKU
CLAY by Suzanne Vilmain
Permission Slips by Miriam Sagan
Cafe Pasqual’s Gallery
May 1, two thousand fifteen
Friday evening – 5 – 7:30pm
103 E. Water St. Santa Fe, NM
{Next Door to Pasqual’s}
Elevator to the 2nd Floor
http://pasquals.com/
changeable
as Baba Yaga, as apt
to bless or curse
any day now, my cabin
might arise on chicken legs
Autumn Noelle Hall, Green Mountain Falls, Colorado, USA
To read more mythic tanka from ATLAS POETICA, click here.
Spring Medley
April quietly turns
emerald green.
Breezes shake apple
blossoms…an aromatic
blizzard.
Listen to this soft
symphony of raindrops.
After showers, gardens
of stars flower.
Evening is the dawn
of night time.
Meteors write poetry
across heaven.
Heart of a Poet
The soul
spills on white sheets–
creative expression
born of compassion, honesty,
and dreams
Previously published in Sketchbook, 2009
We spent yesterday, Earth Day, at the Botanical Gardens, walking the maze on Museum Hill, and at the Museum of International Folk Art.
blue-grey agave
thorned century plant
dies after blooming
step by step by step
inward eyes; quiet mind
beware, Miinotaur
words for the displaced
but
who speaks English?
Evenings walk
My shoes sing duet
With crickets
from Selu, Maharashtra
B, B, B…
“There is no feeling more pleasant, no drug more addictive,
than setting foot on virgin soil.” – E.O. Wilson
In the alphabet of my Maritimes summer,
I’m preoccupied with B.
It’s the bunchberries’ fault.
Their scentless ivory blossoms
bewitch me with pale, cruciform petals
above a cross of leaves,
the cardinal points
of my estival compass
this journey north and east where
B leads not to C but to another:
the Bog. The bog’s beckoning
bunches-of-berries-to-be
in August seduce me to slog;
sink both feet into peat-moss,
a brown befuddlement up to my shins,
breathing bog, pure bog.
Breathing dwarf larch and orchids,
and lichen, odorless, clean.
I’m baffled I can step away, venture
beyond the subtle beauty of the bog, but
I do.
A bay beckons,
a blue bay
of blue whales.
The biggest beast this blue globe
has ever known knows me.
Baleine bleu beguiles
with the greatest breath.
***
the Bs of New Brunswick and Bay of Fundy
behind me. I make it to
the Bay of Gaspé;
I reach land’s end; I plunge—
because of the bunchberries,
the bog, the bay, the one true blue whale.
Miriam's Well: Poetry, Land Art, and Beyond 