Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

ARTS AND CULTURE

Eleven Kyoto haiku

  • 15 April 2019

 

 

Mother mountain gives up her yellow and red

Leaves

to seek her daughter     

 

 

A wooden doll lies

           in a pretty white box                                              

        the spirit of the child

dead

Inside

dreaming

Residing and

Displayed on a mantelpiece

Far away

sick for home

  Kawaii kokeshi

In a pretty white box

 

 

White paper horses galloping           

         silently in the mind

I watch the crowds gathering

at the temple

 

 

Huddled at the shrine, drinking sake and laughing

            Three old woman in their New Year's kimono

Burn incense

twice

clap their hands in Prayer

 

 

Persimmons

         borrowed early

     from Christmas trees

 

 

The crane glides past the white trees and snow

so Swiftly so

It makes me doubt

my memories

sitting by the Kamo River

 

 

Tiny white pebbles and

falling snow                               

reveal themselves with the sun

 

 

a circle of stones and a

        prayer to Mary here

        connects in time

        Lady Godiva's rosary and mine

        on this Mount Ogura 

 

 

Against the white sky

          speaking softly

            the blossom blushes

 

 

In a vast and yellow green expanse

Pouting red lips fixed on sticks

The wigmaker's heads

scares the crows

long rice stalks tickling their feet.

 

 

Ready for harvesting

The rice stalks rub the tips of their fingers,

Wordless

the wind wafts through

Strange acoustics to be heard by 

 

 

Clotilde Lopez is a practicing artist, playwright and poet writing in both English and Spanish. She is deeply interested in Jungian analytical psychology, symbolism and inner work. She worked in Kyoto, Japan for a period of three years and studied and practiced Nihon Buyoh (Japanese dance) and the koto (the Japanese harp).