Under The Pinnacle (Snapshots)

Photo on postcard – rather more than a mere snapshot! – 

© Andi Islinger 1996, used with permission.

(The following 'word snapshots' were views 

from the other side and much further down.)

1. Looking up

Last time I looked up, The Pinnacle rose from mist; now it’s whited out.

Waterfalls of cloud curl over the mountain rim, a frothing torrent.

Pockets of mist stay, lingering around the foot of the jutting peak.

On the mountaintop a line of tree silhouettes, back-dropped by white sky.

2. Looking around

All green – grass, trees, hills; at the tip of a long stem, one red hibiscus.

Purple, red, yellow lanterns outside my window – the flowering trees.

A butterfly poised white on the end of a stem – the azalea sways.

In the farthest tree, suddenly a bright red flash – a rosella feeds.

The hibiscus dips: a magpie has glided in; it perches, head cocked.

Moss on stone; bare stone pointing finger-like to sky; bare sky; one small cloud.

***

Side view of The Pinnacle: the central, sharply pointed peak.

The 'word snapshots' were viewed from the bottom 

of what is here the left face.  (Photo mine.)

When, 30 years ago, my late husband Andrew Wade and I came to live in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, Australia, we rented a house for the first few years under a peak called The Pinnacle, not far from a village named Tyalgum. This weekend I'm one of the featured poetry readers at a one-day festival in Tyalgum, so I fished out some of the poems I wrote back then. These above were originally supposed to be haiku. I didn't know how to write haiku then – I thought it was just a matter of syllable count. So I have now discarded some, slightly rewritten others and turned them into American sentences (invented by Allen Ginsberg as a Western version of haiku). Each sentence is a separate snapshot in words.

Sharing this post (off-prompt) with Friday Writings #110 at Poets and Storytellers United.

An American Sentence for Issa

Haiku nights: going to bed with Issa again; he’s wintering too.

Notes:

I'm reading this book (pictured) in bed every night lately; at present looking at his winter haiku – while it's winter for me too just now, here in the Southern Hemisphere.

Written for Weekly Scribblings #78 at Poets and Storytellers United, where Magaly invites us to choose one of several micro-forms.

 

Ironic, perhaps, that I didn't choose a haiku to reference Issa, one of the great haiku masters. But then, this piece is more senryu than haiku – and an American sentence can be either ... or neither.

 

[Is a poem actually working when the explanations are longer than it?]

 

Instead of the monumental ...

Instead of the monumental, she opts to make small, exquisite things.

Getz on tenor sax ...

Getz on tenor sax sweetens isolation, in this digital age.

Shut inside ...

Shut inside I almost miss startling red blooms, new on my bottlebrush.

Léon Pereira, Apothecary

I don’t know much more than his name and profession, my great-grandfather.

Stopping to photograph ...

Below the big jacaranda in the schoolyard, loud boys play cricket.

                                                 *********

Stopping to photograph the jacaranda, I forget you are dead.

I open ...

I open my door to a cool clear morning – the mountain carved, sharp-edged.

Sharing with Writers' Pantry #55 at Poets and Storytellers United.

Blooming ...

Blooming in sub-tropic winter: geraniums with deep red petals.

With just a small shift ...

With just a small shift of position, the window shows trees or blank walls.

My garden now empty ...

My garden now empty of the cat who loved it – yet still full of her.

Scattered now ...

Scattered now – my mother's neatly tied and ordered bundles of letters.

Grassy banks ...

Grassy banks – horses one side of the river, wallabies the other. 

Flame

I light a candle to write by -- to make, for writing, a sacred space. 
The candle is white, tinged with shades of purple, variegated, swirling. 
There's a tear-shaped swirl at the bottom, three parallel arcs at the top. 
In between are stipples, gradations, and meandering flame-like lines. 
There are changes of colour from top to bottom, through blue to hot pink. 
The actual flame appears to be stretching, elongating, reaching up. 
For several days, huge fires have been burning in the Adelaide Hills.

I'm doing another 'mindful writing' course offered by Satya and Kaspa, just because their courses are such nice things to do from time to time. This one is called Finding Your Way Home.

For no reason except whimsy, I decided to make this first small stone of the course a series of American Sentences, a Western form of haiku devised by Allen Ginsberg (17 syllables each).

The Sea Through the Window

The sea through the window is stormy; eerie, with patches of pale light.

Above theTrees

Above the trees, crossing that vast sky, is a tiny white cabbage moth.

Flaws

'These are natural flaws,' she said, and I realised: as crystals, people.

Beauty and integrity are not compromised by natural flaws.

Don't try to polish them away — useless; and they make each one unique.

The Ferns

The ferns grow big and flappy, waving like fans in the afternoon breeze.

Though the breeze ..

Though the breeze stirs the leaves and the air's fresh, my sleepy eyes keep closing.

At Tumbulgum

How fast the houseboat moves upriver as a wagtail swoops in closer.

In the fork of the gum with peeling bark sits a beer bottle, half-full.