The Moon’s Aura: Week 7

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1. the zero hours driver sings,
   bringing day’s fade pink roses

2. morning news
   stirs up the buzz
   in the lilac bush

3. little toes
   crush plum blossom petals
   into the welcome mat

4. surprise baby shower
   at the women’s shelter
   —– Chris Patchel

   a lone tulip
   bulb left behind
   stands defiant

5. she looks forward
   to seeing
   the first crocus
   .
   the magnolia blossom
   swaddled in
   a cocoon
   .

   who knew
   the baby’s breath
   would be so sweet

   .

6. the supermoon
   totally eclipsed
   by the lilac scent

7. little hands
   of the violetera
   outside the theater

   flowering irises
   opening the window
   among the tall grass

8. only one bridge
   of light on the
   lotus petals

   Michelle Beyers
   Copyright © 11/14/21

9. Thanks Kala for your kind and constant attention and for the teachings
   Congratulations to the chosen one

   My proposals
   *
   as a good omen
   freesias that trigger
   heavy sneezing
   *
   some warm milk
   looking at the first rose
   of this year
   *
   two antennas
   from the swollen chalice
   of a carnation

10. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter
    – Chris Patchel
    •
    the last
    unpicked rose
    opens up completely
    – Betty Shropshire

11. .
    suddenly
    a purple sky rolls down
    from grandma’s lilac bowl
    .
    i open the crafts book
    to another cross stitched
    peonies
    .

12. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    — Chris Patchel
    *
    on the drive
    the new BMW
    studded with blossom

13. .
    .
    are dandelions
    illegal aliens
    or undocumented immigrants?
    .
    someone please
    tell the spring orchid
    that genitals are irrelevant
    .
    posh narcissus
    the only prudent opinion
    on social media
    .
    .

14. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter Chris Patchel
    *
    in her own room
    a bunch of freshly
    picked daffodils

    *
    gleefully she accepts
    a red orchid
    from her sisters

    *
    most unexpectedly
    the jacarandas bloom
    a month earlier

15. a cradle of three
    cyclamens
    polishes the sky

    Michelle Beyers
    Copyright © 11/13/21

    a pink heart
    of three cyclamens
    cradles the sky

    Michelle Beyers
    Copyright © 11/13/21

16. mustard flowers
    powder the paths
    to abortion clinic

    11.11.2021 by wendy © bialek

    *mustard flowers also called Japanese rape flower

17. jasmine buds
    nod in a sway
    of sparrow’s swing

    ***
    her spring rose
    first spell of oneness
    on his shirt

    Witch Hazel yellow
    tears in her first pluck
    child’s concern

18. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter
    *
    Chris Patchel
    *
    sparrows take the trail
    of breadcrumbs
    from the violets
    *

19. some bluebells
    flattened by
    a fleeing faun

    —

    wild roses
    up against the wall
    obscure graffiti

    1. …or if it really has to be tweaked to make the difference between ten syllables and the requested 11-14 syllables….

       a few bluebells
       flattened by
       a fleeing faun

20. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    — Chris Patchel ** touch

    a last spin
    in there daisy wheeled car
    before dark

21. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    Chris Patchel

    attracted to
    the very blossoms
    that make them ill

    11.11.2021 by wendy © bialek

    11.11.2021 by wendy © bialek

    1. oh no.!!!!! …warning of an uchikoshi alert

       because it backlinks to:

       her perfume
       with its hint of petrichor
       enchants him

       — Marietta McGregor **smell

       changed to:

       healing from
       the very blossoms
       that made them ill

       11. 12. 2021 by wendy © bialek

22. and if ‘weeps’ brings to mind….a liquid in the form of tears, than:

    surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    Chris Patchel

    buddleia
    bends over
    moses-in-the-cradle

    11.12.2021 by wendy © bialek

    1. LOL!!!!!!!
       and i need to keep it on the list!!!

       my bad….please delete the following verses:

       buddleia
       bends over
       moses-in-the-cradle

       11.12.2021 by wendy © bialek

       and:

       buddleia
       sways over
       moses-in-the-cradle

       11.12.2021 by wendy © bialek

       and:

       buddleia
       weeps over
       moses-in-the-cradle

       11.11.2021 by wendy © bialek

       thank you, kala

23. *
    the hedgehog
    hidden among rocks
    and wild roses

    *

    is it possible
    Phooey is now fuchsia
    in full bloom?

    *

    tiptoeing
    over wisteria
    on the veranda

24. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    ——Chris Patchel

    falling blossoms
    cover the henna prayers
    on her palms

    cherry blossoms
    bend down to whisper
    a poem in her ear

    1. small change, to drop a syllable:

       cherry blossoms
       bend down to whisper
       poems in her ear

25. Most touching, Chris! Thank you Kala, for mentioning my verse _()_

26. *
    surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter
    *
    Chris Patchel
    *
    strewn petals
    of the newest
    camellia cultivar
    *

27. Congratulations, Chris. I liked the petrichor-shower and shower-shelter linking; and the many things this verse carries in just seven words (in me it stirred a vision of Maid, which we have been watching lately).

    surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter
    – Chris Patchel

    —

    between
    the shell holes
    a tiny violet opens

    1. ….and if ‘holes’ are deemed to be too round, given the enso, then:

       between
       the gun emplacements
       a tiny violet opens

    2. Yes, the Maid series was excellent! And it’s what brought the women’s shelter to mind (and also the custody hearing in my other verse offer).

       There is often more than one linking idea present. What most intrigued me was the idea of enchantment vs. mistreatment.

28. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    ——Chris Patchel

    next door is a vacant lot
    where wildflowers
    volunteer

    1. perfect – love this Jonathan!

       1. thank you, princess k

29. on a spring walk
    the pram full
    of peach blossom

    her mobile
    charts the wild growth
    of wisteria

    one cherry blossom
    left uncrushed
    by careless feet

30. they say
    timing is crucial when
    it comes to forsythia
    ******************************
    jacaranda petals
    cover a multitude
    of sins
    *************************
    finding no
    condemnation from
    a jack-in-the-pulpit

31. they say
    timing is everything
    when it comes to forsythia
    ***************************************
    jacaranda petals
    cover a multitude
    of sins
    **************

    1. please ignore this post

32. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    Chris Patchel

    transplanted
    lady’s slippers live
    in a flower bed

    11.12.2021 by wendy © bialek

    1. for the records:

       lady’s slippers are a form of orchid.

33. Dear Kala, thank you again for sharing your knowledge. It indeed helps broaden perspectives. Below are my offers for this week. I have dared to use a seasonal word (ashok blossoms, mango blossoms, palasha blossoms) that may be very specific to the place I live, India.

    coral flower beads
    mingles with jade leafage
    on an ashok tree

    swelling mango blossoms
    inviting
    the line of bees

    a forest on
    flaming fire
    with palasha blossoms

    Have a lovely day. Enjoy!
    Love and smiles
    Amrutha

34. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    — Chris Patchel ** touch

    there’s something about
    pip squeaks
    and white petals

    trampled petals
    also have a magic
    about them

    1. Congratulations Chris! And thank you, Kala, for helping us along!

       placing last year’s
       geraniums
       back outside

35. ” Lorin,
    I read your response about ‘thin clothes’ and ‘mango’ and I agree with you. Being an Indian, who has lived in India all her years – mango (more than a dozen well-known varieties) means summer! But yes – I agree it needn’t be so for the rest of the world. ” (- Kala)

    ” princess k & Lorin,

    I see your reservations about verses 2, 3, 4 and 5 all being about water :)) I see it differently. Everything is connected to everything else in some way, and the more restrictions we place on the ‘sameness’ of verses, the more renku becomes just one bundle of ‘no-no-s.’

    Does the mention of ‘sea breeze’ imply ‘water,’ connecting it to ‘fluid’ and ‘snow? And is ‘snow’ related to Sally’s ‘fluid stroke’ or to petrichor? Personally I don’t think so.

    Everything is related to every other thing in this world. ” -Kala

    (all quoted from the preface/ main page of Week #7 – Lorin )
    ——————————-

    Kala, since you’ve published these statements that involve me in your forward/ main post this week, I will respond here, on the thread.
    .
    “Being an Indian, who has lived in India all her years – mango (more than a dozen well-known varieties) means summer! But yes – I agree it needn’t be so for the rest of the world.” – Kala
    .
    I’m not interested , in this dialogue, in what ‘mango’ might mean for an Indian, for an Australian, for an Eskimo or for anyone in any other part of any other country in the world. I’m only interested in whether or not ‘mango’ is rightfully interpreted as a kigo for summer in this particular renku or not.

    Kala, I’ve seen you teach/preach upon ‘first things’ in the order as we find them in saijiki — ” early spring, mid spring, late spring and all spring.” In those little lectures, your emphasis has been: “When does the thing/ phenomenon first appear?” And in this you’ve been, in fact, following the example of the seasons as given in Japanese saijiki translated to English. For this particular renku you began without a saijiki (or season word list), then in your 3rd week’s preface (after the hokku & wakiku were in place) you announced that we’d be following the ‘500 Essential Season Words’.

    What happened after that? You obviously weren’t following that source for verse #5 because ‘mango’ isn’t even listed in ‘500 Essential Season Words’! (Verse #4 was a ‘no season/ all seasons’ verse despite that the verse you chose had a very wintery feel. ) How could ‘mango’ be a kigo/season word for this renku if it’s not listed in the saijiki/ season word list you stated we’d be following? It’s clear that you “changed horses midstream” about the saijiki/ ‘500 Essential Season Words’, but you did this without advising those of us who were submitting verses that you’d changed your mind.
    .
    “Just felt mentioning summer twice isn’t needed in a verse. ‘thin clothes’ and ‘mango flavoured kisses’ both are strong kigo words for summer. ” – Kala (from your last week’s preface)
    .
    So this was, for me, not only a shock but unfair. The fact is, Kala, you didn’t need to “mention” this at all, and especially on the ‘front page’. I might be the only one (though I doubt it) but I don’t like being ‘spoken down to’ (“mentioning summer twice isn’t needed…” indeed !!! ) I don’t like having a verse displayed in your preface to show others what you see as faults, an example of what not to do, without my permission. This sort of thing (making a negative example of people’s verses on the preface/ main page) hasn’t happened before, to my knowledge, in any THF renku, Verses have been listed as “also liked” , but without derogatory comments added, as you’ve done.
    .
    I don’t disagree that in general we associate mangoes with summer, but being an Australian, I’m aware that the mango season is longer than the 3 months of our summer. November, for Australia, is the last month of spring and there have been mangoes (from up north, of course… these from Queensland) in my local supermarket for two weeks, now. It’s one of the newer varieties, R2E2, developed from the Florida (USA) variety, ‘Kent’, which was imported here in the 1930s. There will be several more varieties available through summer and into autumn.

    But none of that is relevant to what’s at issue here.
    .
    “Being an Indian, who has lived in India all her years – mango (more than a dozen well-known varieties) means summer! ” – Kala (last week)

    “Being an Indian” . . . but more importantly for a THF renku being sabaki for this renku, for which you gave ‘500 Season Words” as the reference list/ saijiki, what right do you have to skip the saijiki/ reference list you instructed us to use ( and which doesn’t even mention ‘mango’ as a kigo/ season word! ) with no warning whatsoever and pronounce to the world that “mango means summer”? !!!

    Being the sabaki (and under the circumstances outlined above) what right have you to claim “mango means summer” and hold up (without my permission) one of my verses as an example of an obvious flaw to be avoided? I find this action of yours presumptuous to the point of outrageous.
    —-
    “princess k & Lorin,
    I see your reservations about verses 2, 3, 4 and 5 all being about water :)) I see it differently. Everything is connected to everything else in some way, and the more restrictions we place on the ‘sameness’ of verses, the more renku becomes just one bundle of ‘no-no-s.’ ” – Kala
    .
    Please don’t lecture to me, Kala. You’re not qualified to do that.

    While it may be true that “everything is connected to everything else in some way”, the basic generator of forward movement in renku is “the shift”: a verse must, in some way, link to the immediately previous verse (for continuity) but it must not link back to the verse before the immediately previous verse in any perceivable way. Ideally, there should be no perceivable links back (the dreaded ‘backlink’) to any of the prior verses , either. (I was under the impression that you were aware of these basics, btw, having been taught by the same people I was)

    On last week’s thread, I referred to the way that, in my view, each verse after Sally’s wakiku linked to other verses via a generic ‘water/ H2O/fluid’ link: Sanjuktaa’s ‘snow’ (frozen water) to the fluidity of ink (rightly), Kashi’s ‘sea’ to the same’ (uchikoshi?) and even Marietta’s ‘petrichor’ (the scent of rain carried from a distance).
    .
    “Does the mention of ‘sea breeze’ imply ‘water,’ connecting it to ‘fluid’ and ‘snow? And is ‘snow’ related to Sally’s ‘fluid stroke’ or to petrichor? ” – Kala
    —
    Yes, the mention of ‘sea breeze’, in my view, certainly does imply water. How could it not? The sea is water. Also, bones of a beached whale, in this verse (in itself, an evocative, well-written verse) would be very close to the sea and possibly visible only at low tide. ‘Sea’ (fluid, liquid, water) links to snow (frozen water) in the wakiku. No problem. There’s supposed to be a link here! But it also links to Sally’s ink brush ‘enso’, via fluid/ water and this is an example of uchikoshi, “return to last but one”.

    The issue begins with Kashi’s verse: ‘sea’ is water and the ink for Sally’s ‘enso’ is a powder mixed with water. Also, ‘sea’ links back to Sally’s ‘fluid’. Uchikoshi .. . there’s no denying it.

    In Sanjuktaa’s verse ‘snow’, being frozen water, links to ‘fluid stroke’ in Sally’s wakiku, the previous verse (as well as to the colour of the enso page, white) and so it should. No return to the hokku (last but one) is evident here. All’s well.

    Marietta’s ‘petrichor’, as noted, is the scent of rain fallen on dry soil, especially clay soils, perhaps. Rain, like sea, is a form of water and the link here, to Kashi’s beach/sea scene, is good, too. Unfortunately, snow, in the uchikoshi, is also a form of water, so we have uchikoshi . . . return to last-but-one, Sanjuktaa’s’s verse.
    .
    Again, I like all of the chosen verses, as verses. They all have good links to their wakiku. It’s the theme of ‘water/ fluid’ running through from verse #2 onward that I find unlike renku.

    And yes, 🙂 In context of all this, I find Chris’s verse (on one level) funny and clever, intentionally so or not. (… but I highly suspect it is intentionally.)

    surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter
    – Chris Patchel

    . . . in “baby shower” (the party, the event) ‘shower’ is a word link (though not a ‘meaning’ link) to Marietta’s ‘petrichor’ (the scent of literal rain falling/ fallen on dry clay/ earth) ‘Shower’ here, doesn’t allude to a rain shower but its meaning derives from ‘rain shower’. That’s how ‘word links’ work. Is the perfectly acceptable word link, ‘shower’, to Marietta’s ‘petrichor’ verse also a link/ uchikoshi to Kashi’s ‘sea’, continuing the theme of water? I think it is.

    ” shower: from “Old English scūr – ‘light fall of rain, hail, etc.’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch schoer and German Schauer .” – https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=origin+of+shower

    All the verses in themselves are excellent, imo, as are the links between them. It’s the ‘backlinks’ that are unfortunate, beginning with Kashi’s uchikoshi to the fluidity of Japanese/ Chinese ink, continuing the watery theme with Marietta’s ‘petrichor’ (the scent of rain mixed with dry earth) and now (amusingly) with Chris’s wide-awake word link “shower” which, as well as linking nicely to Marietta’s ‘petrichor’, also unavoidably links to all of the preceding verses except the hokku and continues the ‘water/ fluid’ theme.

    The sense of a water/ liquid theme, “running through” this renku . . .as princess k. astutely said . . , is, I believe, unavoidable.

    “What’s done is done and cannot be undone.” (from memory, from the Scottish play’ . . . and I don’t mean ‘Peter Pan’.
    🙂

36. Beautifully explained Kala and such a lovely verse Chris. Congratulations.
    Here’s my offer:

    just enough shade
    for the bright yellow
    of a wild flow

    1. Sorry there’s a typo in my verse:

       just enough shade
       for the bright yellow
       of a wild flower

       1. I think I haven’t had enough coffee. Lol Correction again.

          just enough shade
          for the bright yellow
          of a wild rose

    2. and here, lol!!!! all along, firdaus, i was thinking you were doing a super, creative “shel silverstein”, and not the lack of ‘liquid stimulant…coffee”

       https://visualrhetoricspring2012.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/ohsnap002-1-1-1.jpg

       1. Hahaha that’s a good one Wendy! LOL

37. there’s nothing wrong with a bunch of flowers
    when ..
    you say goodbye

    Nani Mariani

    Nani Mariani

38. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter
    – Chris Patchel
    •
    savory wild rose
    blossoms on each
    kintsugi plate
    – Betty Shropshire

39. my parents dinner
    dad gave mom a rose
    brings back memories 75 years ago

    Nani Mariani

40. on that hill
    we have prepared jasmine palace
    for the last place

    Nani Mariani

41. surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    — Chris Patchel **

    so so beautiful dear Chris..
    Brilliant!!

42. Glad you liked that verse, Kala.

    For fun:

    first dandelion
    where we buried
    Mr. Whiskers

43. revised:

    surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    Chris Patchel

    buddleia
    weeps over
    moses-in-the-cradle

    11.11.2021 by wendy © bialek

44. in honor
    of the event
    a wreath of flowers

    around the cradle
    a lulaby and
    a wreath of flowers

    the flower of gifts
    fills with its fragrances
    the guest room

45. again, a perfect choice….kala! i am astounded by your brilliance, and performance as our sabaki!!

    chris many kudos!!!!….just brilliant! love the link of ‘hint’ with ‘surprise’
    and the huge story painted with just a few well chosen words!!!!!
    a very mature and compassionate verse indeed!

    surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    Chris Patchel

    buddleia
    sways over
    moses-in-the-cradle

    11.11.2021 by wendy © bialek

46. Congratulations Chris

    surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter

    — Chris Patchel ** touch

    Thank you Kala for including mine in your summing up.

47. Congratulations, Chris! A strong addition to the raskia, indeed. Thanks, Kala, for the comments and insight. On we go!

    *
    surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter
    *
    Chris Patchel
    *
    dappled fawns
    hidden in a creche
    of dandelion fluff
    *
    dappled fawn emerging
    in a flourish
    of primrose
    *

48. Quite touching, Chris!
    •
    surprise baby shower
    at the women’s shelter
    – Chris Patchel
    •
    nanny goats’ maaas
    as I tend to the wild rose
    in bloom
    – Betty Shropshire

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