October Harvest haiku "spots in time"

October  Harvest

 

SAGE

The desert sage burns,

Indian style – in the fireplace,

Logs giving off  incense.

 

She finds a baby rattlesnake

crossing the bridge; one baby is dead.

run over by a car.

 

Baby rattlesnakes

 are most dangerous; most toxic.

Simply, they lack control.

 

Lava rock is black,

Mistaken identity, in a white hollowed

Skull like piece of stone.

 

The cactus fruit thorns

Penetrate, like pins, needles

Into my finger !-

 

“Spiders, snakes, and  crows

Can be  my friends, Kathy says!

---- Is it possible?

 

Honey from buckwheat,

Honey from black sage is best –

-- clover is sweetest!

 

A red tailed hawk wheels

In October’s wind,

Rises, then swoops down.

 

Red leaves in Autumn,

Irresistible – pick three

Leaves – poison oak burns!

 

 

Gathering pink quartzite,

 rose stone silver crystals

---geological finds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The red geranium

Poking through the railing, asserts

---its flowering  code!

 

Road runner in oak grove

With a lizard in its mouth,

Runs fast, at daybreak.

 

A hummingbird comes

 to the pentsimen,  turning,

hovers,  whirrs away. 

 

 

Emerald  hummingbird

pauses to taste the red nectar –

I gaze –Amazing!  

 

Looking out, deer grazing

gazing into  her pool like

eyes,-- yes, the Buddah!

 

Ravens, raptors

Arc,-- awk, awk, awk – circling high,

pivot on a dead branch.  

 

 

Crickets on the road,

Grey monotone, camouflague

--mute silent, leaping! 

 

I wake in a cloud,

mist all around. Birds chirping.

my porch - an aviary!

 

An owl wakes me

at 4AM, --who,who –ing-

Who. --Haunting indeed!

 

Pink breasted finch  

Chirping, perches on my sculpture –

--Where do the birds sleep?

 

As I saunter down

The mesa – my auburn hair

strand blows in the wind. 

 

The  hawk   hooks its claws

on my porch railing  – who is

more startled-  me?

 

September haiku, day by day, Moments Captured

September Sightings

 

 Spotting mule doe

  her fawn on the  knoll,  wide eyed,

---lifting gaze, move on.

 

Looking up, see three deer

The buck, doe and fawn passing

by – caught in a glimpse! 

 

Blue black wrens whirr

In a flock – then rise

---    To the wide blue sky.

 

A lizard slithers

      --across shadows of sunlight –

On my morning porch.

 

A lizard slithers,

Pauses; should it leap over the edge?

--Yes! “Courage” in  skin.

 

Dawn’s light pink brush strokes

Warblers celebrate in song

---Joy in the morning!

 

After yoga praising the sun, 

A scrub jay lands  on my porch –

-- welcome guest! 

 

I  take a yoga

warrior position --- greeting

the morning sunrise.

 

Found in cleaning sorrel,

a beautiful snail

--now, on my doorstep.

 

 An Arabian mare,

whinneys to the horses,

Calling to each other.

 

 

Half-moon outside,

My bedroom window –

--keeping watch!

 

Bedtime spiders spin

the Brown Recluse on my wall,

--first night at Dorland!

 

Found!  A hummingbird

Nest in the greenhouse, empty

--On a cactus stem.

 

Each morning, a wren

Climbs the screen, its small beak

--Pecking, and searching.

 

Quail bobbing along

Cross over the mesa top

 In syncopation,- a parade

 

A bobcat track

On the knoll this morning

---Before yoga.

 

A frog appears

On my doorstep three nights

--Is he my Prince?

 

The yellow lantana

Attracts my first butterfly,

---A yellow one.

 

Yellow bugle blooms,

Desert tobacco’s  leaves,

--coloring the sand.

 

California oak acorns-

first thought them, snails,

dark mahogany nuggets.

Preface to poetry writing : A definition

Preface

ARS POETICA  by Archibald MacLeish (b. 1892)

 

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit,

 

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb,

 

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown –

 

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.

 

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs,

 

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

 

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

Memory by memory the mind

 

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs.

 

A poem should be equal to:

Not true.

 

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

 

For love

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea –

 

A poem should not mean

But be.

Dragon Fly Festival Dorland OPEN STUDIO

Meet the Writer in Residence.  JANET M Roberts

Janet is a prize winning poet and writer.   Along with having been a contributor  twice at the prestigious Breadloaf Writers Conference in Middlebury, Vermont,  she was awarded a scholarship by Kenneth Rexroth with the International University to write poetry  in Japan.  She has received fellowships from the Aspen Writers Conference,   and has been awarded writers’ residencies at VCCA (Virginia Center for the Creative Arts) and at YADDO.   The New Jersey State Council of the Arts gave her a poetry award, presented by Alan Ginsberg.   She won a competition sponsored by the AAUW(American Association of University Women) for her poems.   NJ Dept of Education published  her poems for children.  Two chapbooks were published, “ Heart’s Chord” for her MFA requirement.   She also has had  travel writing, feature articles on people and places, published.  She scripted and directed a series of 12 cable tv programs, “Making the Far Away Near:  There and Here” funded by the NEH in Pennsylvania.  She was a featured poet in POETS IN THE SCHOOLS in NY.   More recently, in 2008, she was awarded a grant from the NEH for her research on an American  poet,  Elisabeth Ferguson;  she created a performance of her poetry for the annual House Festival, held at her the Ferguson historical property, near Philadelphia.  Janet has taught creative writing and writing at a variety of universities, most recently the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.  She also taught Creative writing in two peace education programs for the EU, in Kosovo, and Macedonia in the last decade, along with  conducting training for trainers of peace education with the Soros Foundation in the Republic of Georgia.   She has published a variety of academic articles in professional journals, on poets, including Ann Sexton, Anna Akhmatova,  Amy Lowell, and the Sumerian Poet, Enheduanna.    She specializes in the relations between the arts: music, poetry, dance, sculpture and Literature, and has given a variety of performances, lectures and training in this genre, creating the interdisciplinary program for a seminar at University of Pennsylvania(published  in The New Yorker education journal) and for the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Both institutions have retained her model for their ongoing programs and curricula.  Her paper for the International Inter arts Conference in Upsalla, Sweden  on Emily Dickinson’s poems set to music by Aaron Copeland and the contemporary  UC Berkeley graduate, John Adams, was a benchmark; another paper on architecture and poetry in WS Merwin’s poetry  was given at the International Arts conference in Wheeling, Virginia.   

Janet has also been awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award,  during which she was an active advocate for translation of poetry into English. She received  a National Endowment of the Humanities research grant for study of gardens (Nature) and literature held in Florida.  She participated in the national committee on environment and literature, winning a grant for Thoreau studies in New England, retracing his travels and researching his journals and writings.  Thoreau’s Walden Pond is still one of her favorite pieces of literature. 

“I am very happy to be at Dorland.  I wanted a residency in California so as to stay on the West Coast and to be close to my godchildren and god grandchildren, as well as my friends and extended family in the San Francisco bay area.   I also wanted to experience the culture of art, poetry and music from the West Coast perspective.  Dorland provided me that opportunity!   I await more journals and documents of my seven years in China.  I learned about Dorland  as a published writer in “Poets and Writers”.   PEN American Center in Los Angles invites me. My residency  allows me to write the draft of my memoir and to create a manuscript of poetry.   I just finished revising a feature article, one travel piece based on inspiration from literature, for the Beijing Review, a journal published weekly in China. I have been productive at Dorland writing up to 5000 words on a good day, and averaging about 3000 words a day.   I feel grateful for this opportunity; it is now or never! “   

 

Janet Roberts in China in 2012.

   

Janet with her Dean and Chairman, Nanjing University.  2012.

 

 

Janet with Ikebana installation at art show in Beijing, China  June 2012.