The Riddle of the Door (Thursday Doors)
What am I seeking?
Why look for crows inside these
cosmic spaces of cold light?
Janus holds the key,
but none are denied entry–
none are ever left behind.
When Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday prompt this week included Janus, I knew I wanted to have Janus doors for Thursday Doors. But none of the door guardians in my collection of door photos included Janus. So I decided to make my own.
Janus is the god of gates and doorways, whose two faces look to the past and the future. It is apt that January is named after him. He is associated with keys and time, and protects the portals of transition we all must pass through.
We can try to live in the past, but it is impossible to escape the transit of time.
My poem is a mondo, which asks and answers a question “in the spirit of Zen”. My kigo word is cold light, but I’ve also included Janus, space, and crows.
There are always more doors to pass through at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
January 2024
I change the calendar and consider the possibility of spring. All that I meant to do, that still needs to be done, remains piled up around me, clogging the inside of my mind and depleting my energy. I seek sleep.
It’s the first clear evening in many days. Three bright planets appear, spread across the southern sky. The half-moon, very high, shines a grid pattern on my floor. I sit on the bed and contemplate the mystery of the dark and glittering sky.
buried deep
in winter’s vast night
stars abide
Wanting to move away from the rampant consumerism that is symbolized by Santa in the US, I decided to do something more solstice-oriented for the Kick-About prompt #95. I thought also about the Yule log and its ancient association with marking the return of light. I have a book called ‘Woodcut’ that contains prints made from cross sections of tree trunks.
The one I chose to work with was cedar, but only after I finished my embroidery did I do a little research and discover that cedar is considered the World Tree in many cultures, a symbol of new beginnings and a portal between heaven and earth. I used some star fabric and black and white tulle I found in my fabric bin, and loosely circled around the tree rings in the cross-section with my stitches.
I’ve been photographing my bin of mandala art and decided to add birdlings to some of them for future use. In this case I used the arctic birdlings, also done for a Kick-About prompt. It’s my third set; the first were the flower birdlings, then I did a cosmic set when I couldn’t find the first set after one of my many moves. They will be appearing with their various mandalas throughout the year.
The haibun is for the dVerse prompt from Kim, where she asks us to consider how we feel at this beginning of 2024.
Happy New Year!
Scarecrow in Auvers
I’m interrupting my break to reblog this wonderful poem Robert Okaji wrote from my suggested title “Scarecrow Visits Van Gogh’s Wheatfield in Auvers.” He has truly captured the spirit of Van Gogh.
African Penguin (draw a bird day)
We think of penguins
as winter birds, ice skating
a frozen landscape–
but they delight in the beach–
playing in the waves, fishing–
just as much as humans do.
I saw a photo of an African Penguin with a note about its endangered status–from a population of 4 million at the beginning of the 19th century, less than 200,000 remain–and decided to investigate further. I had no idea that although penguins are well-adapted to the ice and snow, many penguin species live in warmer climates.
The African, or black-footed, penguin lives on coastal islands and beaches along the southwest African coast, primarily in Namibia and South Africa. Except when breeding, they spend most of their time in the water. They are excellent swimmers and divers and can stay under water for as long as five minutes at a time.
These penguins are endangered due to both overfishing of their primary dietary foods, anchovies and sardines, and oil spills, which kill many different kinds of marine life. Their natural predators include sharks and seals, but also, when on land, mammals, including domestic cats and dogs. Gulls will steal eggs and eat small chicks. They are especially vulnerable during molting, when they must wait to fully re-feather themselves before they can return to the sea.
African penguins live in colonies and are monogamous, and will come back to the same nesting site year after year.
For Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday, I’ve written a bussokuseki, using the kigo words winter birds and ice.
I taking a break from memadtwo for the rest of the year. Enjoy your holidays, and see you in 2024!
Portholes (Thursday Doors)
Consider the hole.
Its roundness, its nothingness, its betweenness.
Its way of seeing through you.
Does it need to be filled?
Or is it merely a transitioning space?
Which side is in, which side is out?
Here are two portholes–their vessel is a house.
The port of the hole comes from the French word “porte”.
A linguistic door opening between two worlds.
Echoed portals hover above and below.
Twin passageways—what enters? what departs?
Who can define where the journey intersects?
These unusual doorways caught my eye the other day when I was out walking. Notice that not only are there elaborate portholes above the door, but there are also simpler ones above the top floor windows. I also like the transom openings above the windows on the parlour and top floors. The rest of both houses are fairly simple, but those details make them stand out.
I wonder if the architect, Horace Edward Hartell, had a love of the sea, since he also put shells at the top of the door decorations. These mirror twins, built in 1894, were the only houses listed under his name on the Landmarks website. The one on the left, which seems to be under construction, sold for five million dollars in 2016. Before that it was divided into a multi-unit rental. The one on the right has two apartments, although they seem to be occupied by stable residents, as none were listed recently. Perhaps the owner occupies one of the units.
I also like the garden floor window details on the right house. It’s door porthole seems to contain some kind of decorative glass as well.
I started writing a poem about all the different kinds of holes there are awhile ago, but I can’t remember which of my many writing books it’s in. Still, I continue to think about them. I was delighted to find that the port in porthole comes from the French word for door. Doors and holes have many similar symbolic associations.
And for many different kinds of doors, you can always check in with host Dan Antion at Thursday Doors.
Inspired by Inuit Art
Any prompt where I can create new birdlings is a good one!
December 2023
Early December—surprised,
winter creeps into my bones.
Dusk seems to last forever,
all day and all night.
Chilly both inside and out–
north migrates south, reseasons.
Winds rattle all the loose ends,
blow between the gaps.
Warmth is a glow that extends
around cold spells, twined within
the conversation of friends–
hearthbound in accord.
I’ve written my poem in the form of dodoitsu, which is part of Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday prompt this week, although I’ve not used the kigo phrases as she intended. Instead of incorporating entire lines into my stanzas, I used the words of each phrase as the first word in my lines–kind of an opposite to a golden shovel (doing it this way has a name, but I can’t remember what it is). I like the dodoitsu–I’ve used it before, and will do so again.
The grid was inspired by a glass and clay piece from Claudia McGill–you can see it, and read her accompanying haiku, here. Instead of clay and glass I layered and glued pieces of wax paper that had paint on them, along with tracing paper, onto some handmade paper I had.
Laura’s MTB prompt at dVerse was to write a cherita. I took the poem above and reworked it into that form. This is an exercise I’ve done before–I find it helps me to pay attention to what I want to say and how I say it, as each form requires different choices.
December surprises me.
Early winter
creeps into my bones.
Dusk seems to last forever.
I am chilled
both inside and out.
North migrates south,
reseasons me.
Winds rattle all the loose ends.
Warmth’s a glow twined within
the conversation of friends—
filled with goodwill.
December’s appearance really did surprise me this year. May it fulfill its promise of the returning of light–to earth and all its inhabitants.
Medusa (Thursday Doors)
voice
beckons: come
closer she said
venom
frozen in
metal, in time
once
her gaze
was lethal, final
now
only myths
catch the light
This is another door from my files. I know it was taken on the East Side, but looking online for photos of number fives for 20 or 30 blocks between the East 60s and the 90s produced no match. Perhaps in my wanderings I’ll come across it again.
Medusa is a curious choice of guardian. I like the Greek keys surrounding the figure–the door was clearly carefully designed. The round windows are also an interesting touch. I’m sorry I didn’t take a close up photo of those as well.
The poem for the door was done for Michelle Navajas’ W3 prompt although since I neglected to notice the theme was love lost and found it doesn’t really count. I did use the form she suggested though.
I’ve portrayed Medusa in my art several times. Above is an embroidery of the original non-beautiful gorgon, before the poets got hold of her.
I’m not sure what the inspiration was for this collage I found in my archives, but it was labeled “Medusa”.
I had also written another Medusa poem which I never posted. I revised it a bit for Merril’s dVerse prompt to write a poem including the word give.
My visions disappear almost
before they are formed–
What was I thinking?–
I don’t know.
Sometimes I am given a tiny piece,
an image that means something
to something I’ve already forgotten.
Is this mortality?–
an incurable dementia
of misplaced references
to things long departed,
to things incomplete–
or are the threads of time
so frayed so tangled
so densely packed that
they have rewoven themselves
into another life?–one
that combines what I once
gazed upon with the secrets
I gave to the mirror.
My abstractions of Caravaggio’s famous Medusa. If you don’t know her many stories, you can read some of them here.
And for more wonderful doors, visit Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
Murmurations
The Kick-About considers the dances of starlings.
method two madness 
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