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
Being so in Love
I throw my arms wide open
To the Formless One.
*****
Breathe through all the pain
Rejoice in all the laughter
Ere the day is done.
*****
How do I reach You?
Hear You, walk alongside You?
All these with the Heart.
*****
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.
*****
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.
Something a little different….
By the time one realizes there are
But a finite number of opportunities,
The simplest Act of Kindness becomes
Something akin to devotion
*****
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.