sunlight on the Cavendish lab
swallows over cabbage fields
sun on a church steeple
tiny lambs with their mothers
a horse munching stubble
cherry blossom and pigeons
a green tinge to the statue of John Bunyan
grey hair and a backpack
a telephone that croaks like a frog
milk bottles on a black iron bench
a faded George Cross straining on a flagpole
saplings on the motorway bank
partidges running between rows of lettuce
daffodils growing in bunches
a tiny hole in the rusty roof of the barn
Thank you Hobbes for the poetic walk through Spring!
ReplyDeleteCharles (Taiji)
Thanks, Charles.
ReplyDeleteThis poem means quite a lot to me, despite its quality. It is the journey from my family home, in Cambridge, to my home with Lei, in Oxford. I have been travelling between the two a great deal over the past fortnight due to the poor health of my dear grandmother, who passed away just recently. This fragment, in Basho's "karumi" style, is very much my grandmother's "cup of tea".
Toodlepip,
Hobbes
Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteBoth rhetoric and photography.
My sympathy for the loss of your Grandmother. I keep reading "The Journey Home". I love it. However, I'm not familiar with Basho's "karumi" style??
ReplyDeleteCharles
Thank you, Sir W.
ReplyDeleteCharles, thanks for the words concerning my grandmother.
During his long life, Basho considered the "karumi" style to be his intended lasting legacy. It means "lightness". At best, poems in the karumi style are "like water passing over the stones on a riverbed". At worst, karumi becomes "a shopping list". I believe that my verse lies between the two, but I appreciate it for its sentimental appeal.
Perhaps those readers who have done the journey from Cambridge to Oxford will recognise some of the landmarks, too.
Toodlepip,
Hobbes
Enchanting: certainly leaning to the waterstream!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing & more sympathy.