PROMPT: Romantic [Or, romantic]

Daily writing prompt
What’s your definition of romantic?

Depends on the context. If I’m thinking about poetry or philosophy (which I often am,) then it pertains to the early nineteenth century movement that counterpoised the Enlightenment. Those “Romantics” disliked what they saw as the cold rationality of Enlightenment thinking; they valued spiritual and mystical experiences, and they believed it was important to not throw out the spiritual “baby” with the bathwater. That is, like many Enlightenment thinkers, they realized that it was necessary to jettison many of religion’s noxious ideas (e.g. the concept of “chosen people”) and also realized that mindlessly following moral dictates that may or may not have made sense in the pre-Christian Levant could be detrimental to their present-day life experience. However, unlike most Enlightenment thinkers, they did find value in spiritual views of the world as well as in the pursuit of mystical experiences. William Blake (even though he is often labeled pre-Romantic) provides an excellent example. His poems are spiritual to the core, and yet explicitly reject a lot of the moralizing and toxic aspects of conventional religion.

Of course, that variety of “Romantic” is usually given a big-R, and so I suspect the question is after a more colloquial definition. With that in mind, I believe “romantic” means “that which facilitates the unity of two (or more, I don’t judge) people in an immersive intimate experience of each other during a common period of time.” I’m not big on trappings. I think people obsess over trappings because it allows them to slack on the physical / cognitive demands of being fully engaged. This is why sex (done well) is such a great tool both for relationship building and for personal development. It makes it relatively easy (i.e. rewarding) to stay fully engaged in a common experience and in the moment, and to not fall into the attentional abyss.

Farmland, Unchecked [Free Verse]

From a hilltop,
   farmland stretches
    to the horizon:
 
parceled into rectangles
   of brown, beige, and oh 
    so many shades of green.

It must be the tropics,
    for ripe grain to 
     coexist with verdant
      & fallow patches.

So different from the farmland
    of my youth
     where all the rectangles 
      were one of two colors -
      because everyone had to
      pack into the same tight
      growing season. 

Personal Jesus [Senryū]

a plump heron
walks on lily pads: my own
Personal Jesus.

Passiflora [Free Verse]

Passiflora looks like
 space-age technology.

it seems like it should
  pick up signals from
  the far reaches of space...

but I doubt it does.

Honey Bee [Haiku]

honey bee at work
 on flowers still dripping 
   from Spring showers.

Beach Sleep [Sonnet]

The evening winds are blowing out to sea,
     and carry away all the woes of day.
 You see the sway up in the waving trees
      that give a sendoff to what's blown away.

The sea grows dark, and darkness envelops.
     And sandy scents and fishy scents blossom.
 And sounds of crashing waves seem to swell up,
      as vision decides it will play possum.

Then stars - in veins - do shimmer between clouds,
     the clouds one cannot see but can induce.
 Now free from both the light and noise of crowds,
      and all the human chaos and abuse.

Midst drifting shapes my mind is lulled to peace,
 then all that is - both sea and wind - does cease...

Pale Blue [Haiku]

in the valley,
 among fields of brown & green:
  a pale blue village.

Snail Wu Wei [Haiku]

a snail dangles,
 on a leaf, in its house,
   effortlessly.