PROMPT: 30 Things

Daily writing prompt
List 30 things that make you happy.

1.) love; 2.) a glorious turn of phrase; 3.) discovery; 4.) walking; 5.) swimming; 6.) stumbling upon an interesting and / or novel idea; 7.) movement; 8.) travel; 9.) street food; 10.) quiet; 11.) health; 12.) recognition that when things are at their very worst, they must get better — because everything is impermanent; 13.) an intense stretch; 14.) Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass;” 15.) undiscovered country; 16.) the hanging moment; 17.) a mystery-laden world; 18.) a moment of flow; 19.) a mountain path; 20.) a clear stream; 21.) the way of non-adversariality; 22.) a thing stripped to its simplest form; 23.) the moment breath turns the tide; 24.) animals being animals; 25.) a brief instant of free fall; 26.) the recognition that something that used to cause me angst or fear no longer does; 27.) when body, movement, and the world fall into alignment; 28.) first contact with someplace / something new; 29.) connection; 30.) the first sign that the struggle is paying off.

PROMPT: Harmony

Daily writing prompt
What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?
My wonkish need to analyze the train wreck that is our present state of governance and social discourse.

Harmony [Free Verse]

Tap the resonance
And vibrate at the rate
Of those eternal emanations --
The thrumming under-pulse
Of the Universe.

The ripples that can't be heard
Or felt haptically,
But must be tuned into
To feel, otherwise.

Downshift what is you --
Put your Self into idle.

Don't panic
As you start to slide --
Frictionlessly,
A lack of friction that's
Unfamiliar & Uncomfortable,

But which will be the way
One's worldline plays out --
Effortlessly -- to the end.

“Natural” [Poetry Style #10] by Sikong Tu [w/ Audio]

Stoop anywhere and pluck it up,
But if you look 'round - it's not there.
Any path may lead you to it.
A stroke of the brush becomes Spring,
And the flowers are in full bloom. --
It's like seeing a new year dawn:
Snatch at it and you won't have it.
Seize it by force and you'll be poorer.
Be like the old mountain hermit --
Like duckweed gathered by stream flow.
Find calm amidst storms of feeling
By knowing Heaven's harmonies.

NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry. It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a translation of the tenth of the twenty-four poems.

Bee and Butterfly [Haiku]

bee & butterfly,
drawn to the same fragrant bloom,
work in harmony.

Second-Order Harmony [Haiku]

i watch surfers
 watch the waves, attuning
   to their attunement. 

Two Becomes One [Haiku]

cactus & bush
harmoniously grow into
one silhouette