Snowblind: Poems

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Snowblind Aug 2021

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Quiet leaves and aching branches
weave and twine above hanging heads

The smoke has long abandoned these ashes,
I ask you to finally let go of the dead.

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Snowblind Aug 2021

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An echo of hounds
Crying out howls and barks
The flutter of birds wings
joins the spirit of sounds
as they end what they sing
and rise to embark.

The pine is still green but orange and red
across the forest floor do lie.
And unlike these birds I know
that she cannot fly.

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Snowblind Sep 2020

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Carried on the wings of a bird too frail to have left the nest
you fell to the roots of a grand maple that was clinging to a thread.
As it collapsed, branches and leaves falling, you exclaimed,
"I, too, rise above the world around me, reaching such heights."
But you failed to notice that it was just the world falling apart.
And like the bird that bore you, you, too, will not survive the frost.

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Snowblind Aug 2021

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No cypress bears such slender grace and yet
The gates of Petra still shall fall
And time forget
The age of Man had come at all
Before the span of aeons poses any threat
Unto the star-appareled beauty of her eyes.
And I, one step behind
Will surely find
Their glimmer never fades e'en when the last star dies.

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Snowblind Jun 2023

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The sharp-toothed cliff stretched on endlessly
below me, as I stared down upon waves in throes.
Crashing into the jagged embrace relentlessly
sliced across the rocks in dripping repose.

Each new crest broke from the howling sea and
felt infinitely far away the moment it was struck apart,
the swells rising up, for the briefest moment,
seemed to crash in tandem with the beat of my heart.

It felt like I was sinking. And floating. In a breeze
of acute warmth from autumn's breath — grasping
in a way that left me lost somewhere between her and me.
Nothing, in this light I woke up in, felt lasting.

And I wonder, if through all of their thrashing, each wave
will die down to be swallowed. In a deep, dark, grave.

I'm not confidently happy with it. I'll reread it.

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Snowblind Aug 2021

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Spring rains trace flowers
dancing over petal and leaf;
My face, too, is beneath this cascade
traced by water; traced by grief.

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Snowblind Aug 2021

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Porcelain fine, like silver-dipped dusk
frames iris' shine, putting shame diamond.

Soft dark night, sewn of onyx and jet
Flirt sweet to my sight, like they do to the wind.

A song not suited for lungs.
A dance not suited for eyes.
An art built only for hearts.
And to my heart does she give rise.

Untitled Haiku 1

Snowblind Dec 2021

Untitled Haiku 1

A hand upon the bare skin
and the cold tough of wrought iron,
the song of footsteps in snow.

As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

Untitled Haiku 2

Snowblind Dec 2021

Untitled Haiku 2

A drowned flower floats
you took this spring for grantedー
feathers float out of my hand.

As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

Untitled Haiku 4

Snowblind Dec 2021

Untitled Haiku 4

I have seen the coldest summer yet
beneath the weight of shooting stars.
But now sentenced to death in my silk.

As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

#haiku

Untitled Haiku 5

Snowblind Dec 2021

Untitled Haiku 5

Above the clouds
The birds can piece it.
Diving through the crying of a snowstorm.

As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

#haiku

Untitled Haiku 7

Snowblind Dec 2021

Untitled Haiku 7

Traversing the valley
Autumns leaves billow and dance.
The jaws of frost gives chase.

As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

This is the one I am most saddened by the inability to use kanji in, but mostly because I very much enjoy the characters for floating/billowing sharing a character with the word 'ukiyo' meaning 'floating world' and meaning a fleeting world, as Buddhists teach. That all is fleeting. And I feel very proud that the idea of the fall of Autumn and encroach of Winter brings an idea of ending. But still conveys cycles.

#haiku

Untitled Hiaku 6

Snowblind Dec 2021

Untitled Hiaku 6

A crow among the leaves
It's tail dances.
Winds billow from a heart

As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

#haiku

Untitled Tanka 1

Snowblind Dec 2021

Untitled Tanka 1

For the mountain
Loneliness from windー
Is an impossibility.
And yet still
Beautiful that the blossoms fall and fly away.

As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

#tanka

Untitled Tanka 2

Snowblind Dec 2021

Untitled Tanka 2

Beauty
cannot be searched for.
Ivy grows
choking the flower,
frosted trees die in the garden.

As far as I am aware, the site, as of now, does not support Kanji. While I could post these in katakana, it would feel far more disingenuous to the core elements of many haiku and tanka, and so I feel more comfortable posting them as self-translations. Which also explains why the syllable/on count is not in line, since it is a translation. Hopefully they will at least convey the feelings I am trying to express. Or the atmosphere. Whichever finds you.

This is another one I am saddened by a lack of kanji support for. Since it was one of the first ones I attempted to implement kireiji and kigo in. The kigo being the symbolism of frosted trees relating to winter. And the kireiji being a 'ya' at the end of the second line to effectively cut the piece in two parts, albeit related.

Valleys in my Heart

Snowblind Feb 2022

Valleys in my Heart

Something about the way this valley
can extend and flit the smokey mist
like the winds that pull gentle heartstrings.

Behind gazing eyes I wish so so badly
mountainous strength to subsist.
This frostbitten face yearns for Spring.

Need not, from any well but of your own,
glossy eyes grazing the mountains to find
that winter makes forests seem less intertwined;
only in frigid air is the true tree shown.

Want not, the annuals that come and go,
dark and shade may intrude on shine.
Dig firm these roots, these ties that bind.
And then so, worry not when leaves are blown.

#sonnet

Who We Miss

Snowblind Oct 2020

Who We Miss

Your cloud-soft lifts may smile and part
to make you now, the thief of hearts -
as mine beats faster by fits and starts.

But to miss a moment of your grace
even for sleep's coddled embrace
is a cut from my heartbeat of sad disgrace.

Windswept Valley

Snowblind Apr 2023

Windswept Valley

White feathers of snow tufts
plume themselves upon icy branches
marred by frost's biting advances,
stoicly waiting to be sloughed.

Rainfall in a torrential downpour
crashing upon all of the branches
cascading waterfalls of second chances—
again and again, drop to the forest floor.

Sparking flickers of light through clouds
can only barely illuminate the kestrel
that finds fit to prey on the sparrow I let slip.

Midsummer draping me in a lethargic shroud
swaddled around heart and lungs to slowly settle,
the lucky charm momentarily escapes my grip.

#sonnet #snow #nature

Yellow Creek

Snowblind Aug 2020

Yellow Creek

This morning is not
just a shadow of me.
But a dancing
of the trees.
The bite of a new
unwelcome spring breeze.
My ennui should call
for a falling of leaves,
to dot this sunrise.

— The End —