Renku Sessions

The Renku Sessions: Timber Smoke – Week 32

renku_300

Greetings and welcome to The Haiku Foundation’s current Renku Session entitled, ‘Timber Smoke’. I am Marshall Hryciuk of Toronto, Canada and I will be leading this session through a 36-link kasen

 

How to follow a moon verse? With the rising from a leaven;

 

in the oven
a loaf of bread
opened at the top

Richard Straw

 

Picks up on the rising moon with a rising that has, as Richard Straw quotes from Marcus Aurelius “those ridges that are just the by-products of baking…they rouse our appetite…”

Great linking, too, in the analog of the light being relayed by the moon to the wonderful aroma being radiated “at the top” of the oven from the baking loaf; completed in a digestive sensory experience, redolent with appeal.

Also for appreciation is the vocalic interplay of the closed and open ‘o’ sounds: closed – open -open – closed – a symmetry to the auditory oven from which the verse spreads for linking.

Thank-you, Richard Straw

 

What we need now is 2 lines, spring seasonality. No blossoms or flowers, since the next (35th) verse will be our crescendo 35th, blossom verse. But also, no further celestial bodies, nor mention of the April 8th total solar eclipse that will cross some of North America; i want our concluding verse to be composed of a reference to this sublime event. So verse 34 doesn’t have to be anti-climactic, just needs to reserve the aforementioned topics for subsequent use.

 

Happy linking
Marshall

 

 

 

 

 

Timber Smoke (so far)

 

nothing dimmed yet
timber smoke scent
sifts into the house

Marshall Hryciuk

 

one by one
I pick plums off of the ground

Alfred Booth

 

a file of cars
overtaking a tractor
on the mountain road

Keith Evetts

 

drawn out deer notes
echo in the coolness

Betty Shropshire

 

even paler
than the clearing fog
day moon

Mary White

 

handprints  and crumbs
I would miss them

Pamela Garry

 

giving pollen
a lift
on the bicycle bells

Laurie Greer

 

the tiffany blue
of 3 eggs in a nest

Eavonka Ettinger

 

scattered spores
following a random trail
through landmines

John Hawkhead

 

attempted murder
by the morality police

Rob Barkan

 

next door’s dog
barks
at our snowman

Carol Jones

 

the mailman’s breath
faintly white

Keith Evetts

 

Jacques Brel singing
“in the port of Amsterdam”
on the radio

Alfred Booth and Marshall Hryciuk

 

a whirligig of leaves
sweeps the deck clean

Wendy C. Bialek

 

evening begins
with a gift of opal
moonlight

Marion Clarke

 

beachcombers trade shells
as the tide comes in

Jonathan Alderfer

 

a morning glory
the hummingbird
unfolds

madeleine kavanaugh

 

stepping from the change room
in her prom gown

Laurie Greer

 

her scent
on the pillow
the morning after

Andrew Shimield

 

some vows
break easier than twigs

Dan Campbell

 

hand-calligraphed
happy new year postcard
smudge and all

Pamela Garry

 

hard to forget the party
and my off-tune singing

Biswajit Mishra

 

a blackbird tapping–
smiles and thanks me for
the seed

Melissa Dennison

 

sewing up an open wound
on the dragon’s flank

Tracy Davidson

 

blue dashers
skim the surface
of a still pond

Betty Shropshire

 

twitching of a cow’s tail
in the shade of an oak

Andrew Shimield

 

the endless
night of a Las
Vegas casino

Eavonka Ettinger

 

wyndes level snow-stacked tables
in the sea-front caff

Dick Pettit

 

sipping on hot chocolate
after an afternoon
of ice skating

Nancy Brady

 

skimming recipes
for Oaxacan mole sauce

Wendy C. Bialek

 

crinkle of leaf
behind me on the path
quietly the creek

Marshall Hryciuk

 

just as the moon reaches
its frost phase

Laurie Greer

 

in the oven
a loaf of bread
opened at the top

Richard Straw

 

 

 

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John Stevenson

Comments (116)

  2. each seed hole
    a red wiggler deep

    a quart of red wigglers
    how much I miss them!

    red wigglers
    in spring semester bio

    red wigglers
    wound up on coffee grinds

    red wigglers teaching
    chemistry – spring semester

  3. in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top

    Richard Straw

    shop-soiled jack in the box
    loss of the clown’s nose

  5. raking up dead grass
    for the compost bin

    carefully mowing
    around the tiny chirps

  8. I still believe
    in wishing wells

    I still practice
    wishing upon a star

    puppets never even
    notice their strings

  12. this is what i woke up to on this easter/trans sunday:

    snowflakes in the palms
    of our buddha statue

      1. thanks so much, pamela! i enjoyed writing it, and sharing my experience. so glad you enjoyed it second-palmed…lol!

    1. * I pressed the wrong button, Nan…it’s for your lovely “… red-winged bird…” haiku below.

        2. Thanks, madeleine.
          Hope you had a peaceful day, and find much inspiration during the season of spring . . . and beyond.

          1. Thank-you Carole for these lovely words. I did. I hope you did as well! :)

  14. in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top

    Richard Straw

    a kitten plays
    with an acorn cap

  16. I can follow butterflies
    when I’m drunk

    watching a butterfly
    ballet

    butterfly ballet
    in the breeze

  22. rising from the marsh
    a chorus of red-wing blackbirds
    .

    mayflies pirouette over
    a rainbow . . . trout

  25. drooping down the empty basket’s handle
    an IOU biggley tag

    the lawn needs mowing
    as he just loafs around

    breaking records
    for blowing bubbles

  27. Felicidades Richard and gracias Marshall!

    my pawn becomes a Queen
    chessboard in the park

    bloodthirsty bishops
    chessboard in the park

    knights attacking the king
    chessboard in the park

  29. Here’s one based on wishful thinking while reading Thea Wheelwright’s introduction to her 1973 book, Thoreau’s Cape Cod with the Early Photographs of Herbert W. Gleason (Barre, Massachusetts: Barre Publishers).

    +++

    fish from the surf
    broiling on shore

    1. i like this one, richard…i’ve been in summer’s here where this could certainly happen!

  31. just as the moon reaches
    its frost phase

    in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top
    34
    a tray of hot cross buns
    out on the farm shop counter

  33. in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top
    *
    Richard Straw
    *
    an early brood
    of gaping nestlings

  34. in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top
    *
    Richard Straw
    *
    a pair of yellow warblers
    warms to their task

  35. in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top
    *
    Richard Straw
    *
    early mist scatters around
    a returning thunderbird
    *

  36. another half-baked sermon
    in Holy Week

    a Corgi barks
    at the cats in love

    the doll on the bottom shelf
    winks at me

        2. Oh my goodness, I didn’t mean for the smiley face to be at the beginning of the sentence, too. I wasn’t paying attention–although, I can’t blame everything on allergies:/

  40. the first haircut
    of the greening grass
    .
    the robin tugs, tugs, tugs
    an earthworm out

  46. in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top
    *
    Richard Straw
    *
    no scarecrows were harmed
    for the straw bale garden
    *

  47. Oh, yum, what a fabulous sensory experience in Richard’s verse, Marshall. I can’t believe we are so close to the end.

    in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top

    Richard Straw

    the returning hum
    of a honeybee

  48. *
    in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top
    *
    Richard Straw
    *
    going halves with the first crop
    of oyster mushrooms
    *
    chicken-of-the-woods
    for the rusty foragers

  51. A wonderful verse, Richard, and a great choice, Marshall.
    Being Welsh, hiraeth, comes to mind.

  53. Thanks, Marshall, for selecting my borrowed idea for a link and for shaping it into a correct form. It’s an honor to have it be part of this renku, which began (it’s hard to believe) last year on August 10th.

    And thank you to everyone for commenting on this link. Like the renku itself, it has been part of a wonderful group collaboration.

    +++

    Here’s my sibilant and alliterative suggestion for the next (pre-lunacy) link. It contains no allusions, except in general perhaps to Theodore Roethke’s greenhouse poems, especially his famous poem, “In a Dark Time” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43347/in-a-dark-time):

    the softness of moist moss
    in the silence of shadows

  54. *
    in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top
    *
    Richard Straw
    *
    the warm wind rattled
    by an old bee husk
    *

  55. smashing appetizers
    the baby waits for supper

    ~ ~ ~

    voices rising
    they shut the windows

  57. in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top
    — Richard Straw (so lovely, Richard and Marshall!)

    a warbler’s trill
    breezes through the shutters

  59. in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top

    Richard Straw

    aroma verse vastly and successfully fulfilled!
    heading right to the bakery
    hopefully i get there before dan

    one of the best poems and linking, richard
    thank you for making my stomach grumble, marshall

  61. Thank you, Marshall and Richard! A wonderful, warming verse–
    *
    in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top
    *
    Richard Straw
    *
    coming in like a lamb
    and like a lion
    *
    lion and lamb
    getting their paths crossed
    *

  62. Kudos to Richard and Marshall
    on the selection of this home-warming verse.

    in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top

    –Richard Straw

    butterfly highlights
    “Catcher in the Rye”

  63. Congratulations Richard for this heartwarming and delectable poem and Marshall for your choice and write-up! It works perfectly for our renku, and at this time of year where bread is especially celebrated in the various traditions and faiths.

  67. Congratulations, Richard, on Marshall’s selection of your verse.

    in the oven
    a loaf of bread
    opened at the top

    –Richard Straw

    opening their mouths to trill
    the red-winged blackbirds

    opening mouths to trill
    the red-winged blackbirds

Comments are closed.

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