Japanese haiku for a Japanese banner

On a Japanese Banner: Four Haiku for the Samurai

like spring’s blasting gale:
strike against all walls to crack—
break—thick bulwarks down

like summer’s forest:
stand tall in tranquillity—
grow wise in calmness

like autumn’s tree-fire:
flame up—burn across the land—
devastate your foe

like winter mountains:
hold hard—all cloaked in snowfall—
stay firm in fastness

Words © Lizzie Ballagher.

Image: traditional hata sashimono (feudal war banner) as carried by Takeda Shingen in the sixteenth century

 

 

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In April

sharp spring wind corrodes

yet cannot stop the greening

push of buds and leaves

 

Image and words © Lizzie Ballagher

Is it spring?

Another haiku for the spring…or is it still winter? Or even summer? Hard to tell, some days, especially at a time when – in many countries – clocks go forward tonight.

dappled blue spring day
all indecision: winter
then humid summer

Image and words © Lizzie Ballagher

 

 

Camellia

Another haiku: for a cold day! However brightly shines the sunlight in the northern hemisphere today, we know snow is coming imminently.

hot breath of summer
blooms bright on the bough—oh! pink—
this camellia

Words and image © Lizzie Ballagher

February

Yes, February may be viewed as the start of spring in some cultures. And, yes, I am writing this post as snow blows in over the North Downs on a below-zero wind. Still, the thought of warmer days and brighter light keeps the winter blues at bay, even so long before the changing of the clocks. Hence this little poem.

Lemon Light                                                           

Day comes up full of willow buds

Yellow as yellowhammers

And dusts the path with daffodils,

With flaring saffron crocuses.

 

Between long cirrus clouds, citrus light shakes out

The splash & flash of goldfinch wings.

 

An early brimstone butterfly ascends

Creamy yellow on skeins of invisible updraft:

Away, it lifts away, drifts away

Over banks brimming with primroses.

 

And now on the morning of the springing clocks,

Here in this first week of a northern spring,

 

The flame has turned,

Sun’s fire has burned

From winter’s crimson plum

To spring’s bright lemon light.

 

© Lizzie Ballagher

Blue Earth, Green Light

Cut the earth and it bleeds

Blue blood:

Bluebells among the brutal butchery

Of coppiced beech, of oak corpses

Felled

By cacophonous winds

This winter gone.

 

While heaven’s hue falls

Full

In ocean pools, cobalt

Below the April leaves,

And cuckoos

Brand the air with heartbreak,

Blue earth gives out green light.

 

Cut the earth and it bleeds

Blue blood:

Bluebells under the frill and trill

Of singing green, of winging green,

Feathered

By starry-eyed blackbirds

This slow, slow spring.

 

© Lizzie Ballagher

Spring at the start of autumn

Here is the second of two poems recently commended by poet John Siddique in the 2015 Poetry Space international competition: a reminder of spring at the start of autumn. Happy those in the southern hemisphere right now!

View from a High, High Window
Wind stirs the starred uncurling leaves
Beyond this glass, between these eaves,
And the long town settles with a sigh.

Blue twilight pulls a blanket on the day–
The great uneven bed of it–spreading,
Shouldering night across hunched rooftops.

Now night sets out the seedling lights
The way your lover’s hands set out
Spring seeds within the rain-dark earth.

Then lights bloom bright as paths of marigolds
Which I would tread with cool bare feet
To follow to your arms, your sleep.

© Lizzie Ballagher

On this May day

A favourite month for many people, how welcome is May!

On This Day

On this day
When pale cherry blossoms confetti pink from trees,
When bees hum bright from crevices in broken walls,
When aspen seeds and thistledown float soft in air,
When sycamores unfurling drop their tassels—gold—

On this day
When whistling swifts arrive
To scallop and swoop
Quick, dark lightning
Over roofs and under eaves—

On this day
I tread with you through deep bruised skies of bluebells:
The first of May—
On this day.

(c) Lizzie Ballagher

Eclipse

For most people in the UK, March’s solar eclipse was a bit of a non-event. Even so, what struck me about it was the way, with encroaching darkness, all spring birdsong stopped. Thank you, Pauline Pilcher, for the wonderful eclipse photo taken from the Faroes that day!

Eclipse *

The pod of morning unfolds with a flower of evening;
So daybreak begins with a kind of mourning—
A lament for the failing of lovely light.

As winds drop out, the lively leaves (first blush of buds
In canary yellow, woodpecker green)
Swing loose in the sudden breathless stillness,
Velvet chains hanging slack in willows.

Woodpigeons cease their murmuring mutter,
Thrushes their exultant singing.
Starlings stop their burbling chatter.
Even crooning collared doves fall quiet;
They fan their tails, preen plumage, rest & roost.
All soft winged things are hushed.

The willows’ lush spring waterfalls haul in
All folded feathers, muted birds; they make
Small vivid dashes, splashes of colour
In the leaden, dwindling light.

And skies tilt down—the sun’s great bonfire dips
To smoke. Already it is dusk: deep dusk.
The Earth’s husk tips. Eclipse!

© Lizzie Ballagher
* Solar eclipse 20th March, 2015

Image (c) Pauline Pilcher

 

Bluebell Season Starts

This post is for Sue and for other fellow writers on Poetry Space and cyberspace beyond, with thanks for all the encouragement!

BLUE EARTH, GREEN LIGHT

Cut the earth and it bleeds
Blue blood:
Bluebells among the brutal butchery
Of coppiced beech, of oak corpses
Felled
By cacophonous winds
This winter gone.

While heaven’s hue falls
Full
In ocean pools, cobalt
Below the April leaves,
And cuckoos
Brand the air with heartbreak,
Blue earth gives out green light.

Cut the earth and it bleeds
Blue blood:
Bluebells under the frill and trill
Of singing green, of winging green
Feathered
By starry-eyed blackbirds
This slow, slow spring.

© Lizzie Ballagher