Quoting the current occupant of the White House.. in These titles mean nothing.

You have to be the change you want to see.

The Golden Rule has many corollaries, but they all say we have control of our lives. We can do what we want and we can do good and get good back.

It applies to on-line endeavors of course. The more we put into a place like this one, the more we get back. If I stumble out into the world and take some pictures and write a bit about them, someone will appreciate me doing it.

If I come up with a fresh idea - and ideas are my trade, at least when I’m being egotistical - someone will notice.

This is the first of July. The hinge on which the year pivots. I started the year writing a haiku a day. I think I made it all the way through January.

I read some Billy Collins poetry, including the one below. It ends with a hinge.

*
Japan - Poem by Billy Collins

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It’s the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
Billy Collins*

Then I went looking for the haiku he wrote about and found it.

*on the one ton temple bell
a moon-moth, folded into sleep,
sits still. *

And then, still in haiku-land I found another site. Many classic haikus seem to be by Buson (1716-84). Haikus in translation do not have the 5-7-5 syllable convention - because the needs of translation trump the needs of syllable counting.

*

I found a haiku site. Here’s a bit of it.

**Kari yoroi ware ni najimaru samusa kana

Fitting the borrowed
armor to my body—
Christ it’s cold!

*

The last line is not, of course, a literal translation of samusa kana, but in modern colloquial American English, it’s hard to imagine exclaiming about the cold without deploying at least a mild curse.**

I leave you with a great quote - the haiku as a freight train.

“The haiku moment is a freight train of color and image and you are standing on the tracks. The entire train will pass through you and you will be left standing on the trembling trestle of your life holding a little scrap of paper in your hand and on this paper will be the seismic equivalent of what occurred as the train passed through you, the moment you and the train were one. In that moment of forgetfulness and understanding you will know that the train is always passing through you, that the freight car is also the loco/motive and the caboose. That time is one.”

Earl Keener, haiku poet

Oh and a photo, just because.

Here is my bestest begonia. I’ve had it for decades - since I stole a slip from a nursery. A hot begonia, as it were.

I didn’t feel bad stealing it at the time and still don’t. I bought a whole bunch of plants from them that day and I had politely asked if I could take a little slip from the large potted begonia and they had said no. I understand they can’t have people taking bits and pieces of their display plants..... but I wanted recognition of my American exceptionalism. Besides I’m cute and charming and I asked nicely.

Last updated July 01, 2016