The Breton Night (1994)

Loose Leaves – Looking Back

 

Tim Chamberlain - On the Steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London (1995)

Some people say that nostalgia is a disease, but I disagree. I’m sure a lot of poets would feel the same. There is certainly a danger in falling prey to nostalgia, especially if one feels the past is preferable to the present. Personally, I don’t feel that way. There were undoubtedly discontents in the past, just the same as there are discontents now in the present – but we tend to forget this. As the poet, Thom Gunn, put it: “(Aware, gently, of what the past / becomes, golden in ruin.)”*, we tend to burnish our memories and our ‘what might have beens.’ – Suffice to say, the following poem was written a long time ago.

 

 

 

THE BRETON NIGHT (1994)

 

I walk these silent streets:

 

Still, the snow on the banks

of the rivers in Berlin remain.

 

The pages of poetry drift continually

beneath the surface.

Though you do not see.

 

You asked me to dance with you

beneath the bright light of the

midnight moon.

 

A dance before we said goodbye,

and then you turned away.

 

With every thought that follows now.

 

I clasp each memory I have of you,

and treasure it deep inside, as though it were

a last and final embrace.

 

And each time I turn, I see you.

 

You come to me, through this

your Breton Night.

 

Smiling – I see. Smiling – at me.

 

My heart meditates each moment,

unchanging.

 

My thoughts of only you, and the

cherished dream.

 

Letters are not enough, no stamps

to bear: Liberté. Egalité. Fraternité.

 

I look into my sky and see the same,

a silvered moon of memory,

set high in this – your Breton Night.

 

Counting the days, until you return.

 

 

1994.                  

 

 

Man Ray - 'Mother of Pearl Face and Ebony Mask', or 'Kiki with African Mask' (1926)

*from: “A Drive to Los Alamos.” (Thom Gunn, ‘The Passages of Joy’, 1982).

Leaf  297

Last Lamp

Leaf 400 – Looking Back

 

M.C. Escher - Never Think Before You Act (1921)

Closing the ledger of ‘400 Leaves’ …

 

 

Last desk lamp

in the library

winks out.

 

 

 

Sound of Cicadas

Leaf 399 – Looking Back

 

Kobayashi Kiyochika - Looking at Evening Lights (c.1930s)

This is a haiku which I wrote during my first visit to Japan in 2003, while I was staying at a hotel (which no longer exists) overlooking Shinobazu Pond.

 

 

Wandering back to the hotel –

the sound of cicadas

in the warm night.

 

 

 

Tsuchiya Koitsu - Shinobazu Pond in Ueno (1939)

Whorl

Leaf 398 – Looking Forward

 

As the ‘400 Leaves’  project draws to a close, thoughts start to turn to new forms and rejuvenation …

 

 

Fur-flecked whorl

of a fern

waiting to unfurl.

 

 

 

Photograph Credits: Noel Nesme & Dom Sch-veg-man / Pexels

Dust Bathing

Leaf 397 – Looking Back

 

Tatsufumi Kobayashi - Passeri

When I was a child, we had an old, neglected strawberry patch beneath two very tall conifer trees in our back garden. It was mainly used by the sparrows in the summer, and I remember I always liked to see the little hollows which they created in the hard-baked earth.

 

 

Sparrows

dust bathing

in the old strawberry patch.

 

 

 

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #dailyhaikuprompt: 'berry' & 'sparrow.'

Ripples

Leaf 396 – Reflections

 

Robin Maria Pedrero - Cattails And Dragonflies

I have always been fascinated by dragonflies …

 

 

Ripples on water –

two dragonflies

waltzing with the wind.

 

 

 

Sound of Leaves

Leaf 395 – Looking Back

 

Tsuchiya Koitsu - Miyajima in the Rain (c.1930s)

This poem recalls a visit to Miyajima, on a wet and misty, windless day in February 2024. See also, Leaf 312.

 

 

Sound of leaves

slow pattering

precipitation.