The Renku Sessions: Triparshva—call for verse 6

This Post Has 65 Comments

1. Oyster Catchers
   foraging the shoreline

   1. Oyster Catchers : a shoreline bird
      *
      though I realize this and my previous offering may be too late for this round. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of the way of things before it’s all over 🙂 Thanks for indulging me.

2. the whicker
   of a Chincoteague foal

3. Hi Linda…I am trying to thoroughly digest the summer triparshva schema/process, and have a few questions. I’m afraid a discussion about it would be too long and inappropriate here. Do you have any suggestions? Much appreciation for the guidance you are providing!

   1. I’ve gone back and edited the Introductory post to include the schema, and I’m filling in verses as they get added. That should give you a good overview, Judt.
      .
      Also I’ve found that even though Darlington Richards has published John Carley’s Renku Reckoner in a print edition, there are parts of it still available on the website. Notably and usefully for us, there’s an overview of the triparshva form. Here’s the link:
      .
      http://darlingtonrichards.com/rr/docs/Triparshva.htm

      1. Thanks, Linda…I had looked at the schema in your introductory post. I’ll check out the link, too. Appreciate it!

4. riding the east wind
   seagulls pause midair

   1. This is technically OK apropos of airplane takeoff; but perhaps it would be more accessible as:
      –
      facing the east wind
      seagulls pause midair
      –
      ??

      1. Apologies for the waffling…I’ll go with “riding the east wind…” as my submission…”facing” seems to have a somewhat negative mood. Thanks!

5. yet again
   the moon lights the loggerhead
   as she digs
   — Paul MacNeil
   ~ ~ ~
   dandelions grow close
   to stumps rotting away
   — Betty Shropshire

   1. Meh…dying imagery…nevermind.
      Revising to:

      ~~~
      dandelions grow closer
      to stumps then poof, they are gone
      — Betty Shropshire

6. Congratulations, Paul. A fascinating link & shift. 🙂
   *
   something hidden
   among the corkscrew willows
   *
   slowly the warm rain
   pooling in a limestone quarry
   *
   drops of warm rain
   across limestone boulders

7. yet again
   the moon lights the loggerhead
   as she digs
   ~Paul MacNeil
   —
   the locals out before dawn
   for the snapper run
   —
   – Lorin

8. on the wild grasses
   five hearts beat

   -Patrick

9. yet again
   the moon lights the loggerhead
   as she digs
   ~Paul MacNeil
   —
   abalone shell,
   nothing we pick up is alive
   —

   Lorin

   1. whoops again…not ‘purely nature’!

      2nd go with the abalone:

      —

      yet again
      the moon lights the loggerhead
      as she digs
      ~Paul MacNeil
      —
      the tide takes back
      an abalone shell
      —
      Lorin

      1. Um, no … 2nd try with abalone shell is no good, there’s no seasonal reference!

         _ Lorin

10. yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    ~Paul MacNeil
    —
    a copperhead basking
    on the bike track

    —

    Lorin

11. yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    ~Paul MacNeil
    —
    the salt and honey scent
    of coastal banksia
    —
    – Lorin

12. yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    ~Paul MacNeil
    —
    the sand dunes full
    of young mutton birds
    —
    – Lorin

    1. whoops…no, they don’t hatch until around midsummer… I with draw this one.

       – Lorin

13. Loved your verse, Paul! I remember the thrill one Christmas holiday trip of seeing the big Leatherback coming ashore in Costa Rica to lay their eggs on the Pacific Coast so thought your verse as winter! 🙂

    1. I do envy you Betty!

       I’ve studied the great sea turtles a bit, and a bit more just this week. Loggerheads and the others like leatherbacks (the most ancient and the largest today) have varied nesting times. Generally the closeset to the Equator, the less they rely of the seasonal warmth of the sand. It would be too cold in December in Florida or S. Carolina for viability of the eggs. And the species vary from each other — and within a species — a certain beach and a specific old turtle (they are 20 to 30 years old before they spawn) can vary widely. Renewing the species is the act itself. Amazing.
       —
       Like ocean salmon, Pacific and Atlantic, the turtles return to the very same beach where they started. Salmon to small stream up through a larger river, perhaps up a certain waterfall where they too hatched from eggs. How this is accomplished is a mystery, and is a thing of wonder! Your huge leatherback might have just arrived from eating jellyfish on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. A very, very long swim to get “Home.”

       1. Knowing that we would be venturing forth with a not-exactlhy-traditional season reference, I researched back and forth before eventually figuring out that turtles seem to begin coming ashore when the weather is warm enough and I sort of calculated that this seemed to be late spring, almost in summer–and while they come to the same beach, I think they may also come ashore several times to lay eggs, so as Lorin noted the season does extend into summer, but I was kind of counting on their first appearance being the notable one, kind of a “yet again” marking another year.

          What you’ve noticed, Betty, is the complexity of the whole concept of kigo or standardized season references when moved out of Japan into an international context where we have participants living in all hemispheres, and folk in the tropics for whom the seasons of the temperate zones don’t apply at all.

    2. hmmm, Betty, it’s dubious that anywhere between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn can be said to have a winter. And ‘Christmas Holidays’ is a calendar reference to the holidays around December 25th. It can be a seasonal reference , referring to the first month of either summer or winter, depending on hemisphere, but the tropics, in reality, don’t have a winter.
       —
       Yeah, with Paul, I envy you , too. I’d love t be in Costa Rica, or even up in far North Queensland right now, instead of shivering in Melbourne’s rather bleak winter. 🙂

       —

       – Lorin

14. deeply tilling a
    field with small dreams
    —
    secrets being whispered
    by the swaying young forbs
    —
    beach combing
    for shark teeth

15. sweet reminiscences
    of our bygone days
    ~Barbara A. Taylor
    .
    yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    ~Paul MacNeil
    —
    emerging ants stream
    across the forest path

16. butterflies circle
    round the mulberry bush

17. on thin budding branch
    lone mourning dove coos

18. sweet reminiscences
    of our bygone days
    ~Barbara A. Taylor
    …
    yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    ~Paul MacNeil
    …

    turning the earth
    spade by spade

19. a fresh breeze lifts
    this morning’s mist

20. in the paddy young farmers
    work hard singing easily

    ***

    behind the sowers
    some hungry crows

    ***

    on an olive bough
    tutle doves in love

21. sweet reminiscences
    of our bygone days

    **
    yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    **

    tucked into the lee
    of the ewe’s body, her lamb

    – Sandra Simpson

22. sweet reminiscences
    of our bygone days

    **
    yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    **

    sniffing all the newborns
    a lamb-less ewe

    – Sandra Simpson

    1. I just love this! Tugs at the heart!

23. deep sway
    of the blossoming ginkgo

    1. or maybe:
       –
       deep bows
       of the blossoming ginkgo

24. a willow always reaching
    at the lakeshore

25. Paul, congratulations.

    *
    yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    ~Paul MacNeil

    *
    calculating the correct
    depth for each seed planting

    1. Kind of you to say, Carmen.

26. a forest fiddlehead
    releases another drip

27. in my uncle’s field
    a lamb kicks up its heels

    1. Oops – I guess mentioning my uncle’s field means this isn’t purely about nature? 🙁

28. the slow motion
    of wisteria cascades
    ***
    stretching shadows reach
    into the skylark voice
    ***
    with the twittering
    morning mist clears away

29. Congratulations Paul.

    sweet reminiscences
    of our bygone days

    **
    yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    **

    poached or scrambled?
    a cold east wind across the river

    – Sandra Simpson

    1. Thank you, Sandra . . . Hope winter is kind to your garden.

       1. It’s been having its moments!

30. Interesting, now that I’ve googled ‘loggerhead’. I couldn’t make much sense of Paul’s verse before. I admit I had no idea that a turtle was being suggested, and only knew the term vaguely as a part of a ship and in plural as “at loggerheads”. I thought it must be the moon doing the digging!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loggerhead

    http://www.thefreedictionary.com/loggerhead

    —

    Yet, though the sea turtles I’m familiar with are Green Turtles, I’ve found that we have the Loggerhead Turtle here, too, an endangered species:

    http://www.environment.gov.au/marine/marine-species/marine-turtles/loggerhead
    —
    Is the Loggerhead turtle a Spring seasonal reference, though?
    —

    “In south eastern Queensland, mating starts about late October, reaching a peak from November to early December. Loggerhead turtles nest from late October, reaching a peak in late December and finish nesting in late February or early March. Hatchlings emerge from nests from late December until about April with most hatching from February to early March.”

    —

    If that’s correct, and going by what I know about Green Turtles it seems about right, the peak nesting period seems to be early Summer (December in the Southern Hemisphere is the equivalent to June in the Northern) Though if we took the beginning of the nesting season as the indicator, it could be late Spring.
    —

    Lorin

    1. ps, I think this is a case where the use of capitals for the name (Loggerhead) might’ve clued readers like me to the fact that it was some kind of creature, at least.

       —

       – Lorin

    2. All I can find on a kigo list is ‘sea turtle’ on the WKDB:

       http://wkdkigodatabase03.blogspot.com.au/2008/05/turtle-kame.html

       —
       Turtle, turtoise, tortoise (kame)

       ***** Location: Japan
       ***** Season: Various, see below
       ***** Category: Animal

       *****************************
       Explanation

       —
       turtle making a sound, crying, turtle chirps
       kame naku 亀鳴く (かめなく)
       kigo for all spring
       —
       “turtle reciting the sutras”
       kame no kankin 亀の看経（かめのかんきん）
       Their sounds remind the Japanese of monks reciting the morning sutras.

       :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

       sea turtle, umigame 海亀 (うみがめ)
       kigo for mid-summer
       red sea turtle, akaumigame 赤海亀（あかうみがめ）
       blue sea turtle, aoumigame 青海亀（あおうみがめ）
       ….. shoogakuboo 正覚坊（しょうがくぼう)
       Fam. Cheloniidae. Meeresschildkröte

       —
       turtle babies, kame no ko 亀の子 (かめのこ)
       kigo for mid-summer
       pond turtle, zenigame 銭亀（ぜにがめ）
       (children of the Ishigame, Japanese pond turtle) Fam. Mauremys.
       Sumpfschildkröte; Schildkrötenbaby

       :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

       hanachigame 放ち亀（はなちがめ） setting a turtle free
       kigo for mid-autumn

       Part of the Buddhist rituals to gain good points in the next life. Many kinds of small animals are set free, birds to fly or fish and turtles in the water.
       —-

       . hanashi kame uri 放し亀売り
       vendors of turtles to be set free in Edo .

       :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

       – Lorin

       1. I thing that nesting is an implied kigo on this one, Lorin, so I read it as late spring. We’ll do some tweaking at the end so capitalizing at that point is certainly an option if everyone feels it needs it.

          1. Hi Linda,
             Once I got it, I recognised it as a lovely verse. I’m familiar with sea turtles (though not personally with the Loggerhead … but the Green Turtle) If Paul had used the more generic term ‘sea turtle’, as you did when discussing the verse, someone like me who misunderstood ‘loggerhead’ would’ve been able to look it up earlier.
             —
             I suppose my remaining query regarding ‘kigo’ in this renku is about kigo (Japanese, can be found in a saijiki by all participants) and seasonal reference (EL, varies according to world region)
             After your post, above, & call for the next verse, I checked all the mentioned saijiki for ‘sea turtle’ as kigo & only came up with the entry on the WKDB.
             Now (but not before now) I realise that you’re using the term ‘kigo’ loosely, and it’s fine for participants to use regional/ local EL seasonal references: spring is indeed recognised as the beginning of the nesting period for the Loggerhead turtle in Florida, USA:
             “In Florida, sea turtles come ashore to nest beginning in May and hatching continues until late October.”
             http://www.seefloridaonline.com/turtles/
             —
             Here, too, in Northern Australia, they begin nesting in spring:
             “Loggerhead turtles nest from late October, reaching a peak in late December and finish nesting in late February or early March.”
             http://www.environment.gov.au/marine/marine-species/marine-turtles/loggerhead
             —
             So if we take the beginning of the nesting period as the seasonal reference, on the West Coast of the USA and the Eastern Coast of Australia, they begin in mid-spring in Australia and late spring in the USA.
             —
             I think it’s likely that many of us who’re participating might’ve been under the impression that we needed to use kigo, ie, seasonal references from the lists of season words/ saijiki given. Paul’s verse is the first to use a local/regional, non-kigo seasonal reference, and now that I understand, I find the implications of that rather freeing. 🙂
             —
             Well, I’ve learned more than one thing in relation to this verse!
             —
             – Lorin

             1. As I was preparing for this renku, I noticed that for the kasen, John recommended Renku Home’s Japanese-based list. In the resources I included that one, and the Yuki Teikei list (a mix of Japanese and North American) and the World Kigo Database, which for me is kind of like a Rosetta Stone of season references– I use that one often to crosscheck. Actually, I try to avoid using the word “kigo”. Season is important in my own writing but the way we use the concept often not the same as “kigo”. Yes please do use your experience within your locale–that’s what makes the poem alive.

31. warm rain pocks the dust
    of the desert wash

    1. Being an Arizonan, this one definitely resonates. Very nice!

       1. Glad it rings for you!

32. Apologies for the delay in getting the Call for Verse 6 up. I accidentally locked myself out of THF while editing it. Shall I give an extra day for everyone to submit? I’ll take verses through Tuesday.

    L

33. sweet reminiscences
    of our bygone days
    ~Barbara A. Taylor

    yet again
    the moon lights the loggerhead
    as she digs
    ~Paul MacNeil

    the primordial swirl
    of an ammonite
    ~Katherine Cudney

    1. Sorry about that- I see they all ran together. Still getting my feet wet around here. I’ve been out of the game for a while.

       1. Welcome, Katherine. Yes, Paul has warned us that replies in the Comments thread don’t have the capability to display double spaces. We’ve been inserting periods or some other punctuation to hold the space between verses open, but no matter–yours reads clearly as it is.

          My one question: is it a spring verse? The topic feels non-seasonal to me.

          1. Hmmmm. I always thought of ammonite as a late spring word, being a shell, albeit a fossilized shell. It’s probably a stretch to think of shell-gathering when thinking of ammonite but it’s really a moot point if the topic feels non-seasonal so, if you like, I’ll respectfully withdraw. Thanks, Linda.

             1. I can see your reasoning, though I found during some research on shell gathering as a kigo that it actually refers to gathring for food–clams, I think.

                If you think deeper into the image you can probably find a way to refocus it and work spring into the imagery. Don’t force it to be something it doesn’t want to be just for the sake of the renku’s needs, though.

             2. I see how my thinking developed. Jane Reichhold lists sea shells for spring without the gathering or for food stipulation. Not looking to validate my offering, just explaining where it springs from (no pun intended 🙂

             3. Yes. I had been thinking of the shells kigo beachcombing and would have assumed it meant picking up jingle shells, periwinkles or any broken piece with attractive mother of pearl. As it happens, shell gathering was the theme I picked for the last (current issue) of Haigaonline so I did some research. I’d still like to stretch the meaning to include beachcombing–when the winter storms were over and there’s a lot of litter on the sand.
                .
                But I think your fossil ammonite stretches the concept beyond shell. As is, it’s a perfectly good non-season verse.

34. Thank you, Linda, for your kind words.
    – Paul

Comments are closed.