HEALING HABITS
Haiku Poems by Rashna Walton
Haiku, a form of poetry from Japan, were written to describe nature and the seasons and followed a prescribed structure of 3 phrases and comprising 17 syllables. Whilst I have in part adhered to the format, it is the structural element of Haiku poetry that I enjoy with its discipline of keeping to the required length whilst endeavouring to express our relationship to nature, the cosmos and spirituality.
Rashna Walton
When it's time to leave
This warm cave of blood and bone
Who will point the way?
***
Exquisite screen of
Cloud and leafy filigree
Veils the silver Queen.
***
Along the earthwork
Lofty trees toppled, cooling
Moonbeams bathe the wounds.
***
Oh son of Bharat
I am the taste in water
The heat in fire.
***
The ocean receives
Into its swelling bosom
Her sons and daughters.
***
Majestic forest!
I have slept in your great rooms
Under burning stars.
***
Cradle me in moss
When the air is soft and close -
Wrap me in your roots.
***
Arrows splinter on
My breast, coals are quenched beneath
My tireless feet.
***
Sculptor of the heart
Mason of the mind, fashion
Me in Your image.
Fragile container
Of stardust and love that I,
For now, inhabit.
***
Not daring to knock,
A voice from within, laughing,
"But this is your home!"
***
Sometimes a thought, more
Lucid than sunshine, carries
Me back to your eyes.
***
Walking through the wood
My footsteps creaking on the
Freshly fallen snow.
***
Hush, the snow has come
To lie beside the sleeping
flowers of the wood.
***
Fearless warrior
Robed in mist, bright blade of frost,
Turns to face the day.
***
Knowing there is You
What fell sorrow could pierce
The breastplate of joy?
***
Astound me with Light
Bombard me with Miracles
Furnish me with Love.
***
You have a place more
Spacious than any landscape
You know it as Mind.
***
Hang up your costumes
There is no more to do now
But sleep the long sleep.
***
The fragment of five.
Then seven staccato beats
To capture the phrase.
***
When words must finish
Use the language of the heart
Then words are finished
***
Keeping watch in full
Moonlight, shadows slide across
The silent valley.
***
Small orange fire in
Ring of hearth stone cannot push
Away the darkness.
***
My hand cannot stop
The silent blade that enters
The heart and stills it.
***
Stars whirl in night sky
Churning heaven’s inky dark
To a brightening dawn.
***
Transcendent wisdom
Filtered by neural net to
Chalice of the heart.
***
Ask the Beloved;
Shall I come to you naked?
Or veiled and disguised?
***
Rain waters earth. Then
Wind to dry and sun to warm
Her as she dances.
***
Ascending skylarks
Loose their musical torrent
From the clear blue sky.
***
Field of golden grain
Watered, warmed, harvested. Then
Bread for my table.
***
Robin sits atop
My garden spade as if to say
Don’t stop keep digging!
***
Soft breeze stirs the lake
And granite mountain turns to
Rippling watered silk.
Anchored in blue sky
Hanging over patchwork fields
A fleet of cloud ships.
***
Under the rock pool
Speckled trout unblinking bathes
In dappled sunlight.
***
Crouched in a dust bowl
And warmed in afternoon sun
Small tabby she cat.
***
Spaced between the spokes
Of my winding garden path
Yellow tulips stand.
***
Trying to reach You
My thoughts wing upwards and graze
The edge of heaven.
***
Birth of the cosmos
Whose life and death is written
In light upon dark.
***
Comet pebble flung
Through space to skim the surface
Of earth’s atmosphere.
***
If no one watches
The giant redwood falling
Should it make a sound?
***
After the storm, torn
From the branch my wind chime smashed
Upon the wet earth.
***
Rushing of snow melt
Foaming from the mountain-side
Brims the agate pool.
***
Pale white galleon
Who sails anew each evening
Drops anchor at dawn.
***
Mirrored in the lake
Skein of flying geese aloft
Shoal of fish beneath.
***
Circles widening
As the watchful heron’s beak
Breaks the still water.
***
What should take their place
If sun and moon did battle
‘Cross the starry waste?
***
Exploding giant
Tracked across millennia
Your light streaks outwards.
***
Black holes in space time
Draw light into the centre
And history stops.
***
Seven subtle hues
In sky in battleship grey
Fading in sunlight.
***
All of creation
Await mankind’s ascension
To a brave new world.
***
Jealous solar King
Cannot chase pale lunar Queen
From his airy sky.
***
When the heart is full
Then love and love until the
Vessel be emptied.
***
Distilled from darkness
Fragrant rose petal bowl holds
One drop of starlight.
***
Walking on air is
A great deal easier than
Walking on water.
***
Time; do you weigh it?
Measure it, then watch it fly?
Or try and save it?
***
Pale powdery moth
Flitting, fluttering, whirring
Dusted by moonbeams.
***
Something a little different....
Heraldry
I am a war torn flag
Fluttering in life's breeze.
Purple, gold, blue and red,
Crimson for the blood I've shed.
Loudly cracks the cloth of history
A ragged semaphore for mystery.
Lament or joyous testament
I shredding, fraying strand by strand
At last unravelling in the wind
I'll stand
Revealed, Reconciled,
Healed.
Copyright Rashna Walton 2011