DAILY PHOTO: Autumn Fields in South India

DAILY PHOTO: Green Rice & Brown Hills

Rice Field [Haiku]

young rice in mud
awaits paddy flooding rains;
i seek shelter

The Rice Gamut [Haibun]

Terraced rice fields. Some, in rectangular blocks. Others, following valley contours. In the tropics, all stages exist at once: The mirrored surfaces of flooded but unplanted paddies. The orderly stubble of freshly planted fields. The max saturation green fields, densely packed with verdancy. The tawny fields of heavy-headed ripe rice. One may pass all of these (and gradations, thereof) as one walks the narrow lanes that dissect farmland. People, birds, and animals transit the slender paddy levees, lending color to a monotony of vibrancy. Sometimes, a weather-beaten man or woman wades in the field -- feet wide and bent at the waist. Nowadays, people come from far away (sometimes even paying admission) to see these fields -- to see so much green packed under blue skies and to let that photosynthetic glory wash over them. 

mirrored paddy --
flooded but unplanted; a
child studies himself

lush green fields.
crows on the paddy dike
command the eye

tawny rice.
stalks bent under
grain-swollen heads 

DAILY PHOTO: Rice Terraces, Eastern Bali

Taken on December 29, 2022 in Bali

DAILY PHOTO: Rice Terraces of Ubud

Taken on December 23, 2022 at Ubud, Bali

Flash of Black [Haiku]

two roosters
on a paddy dike:
a flash of black

Green Field [Haiku]

sunlit green field;
clouds drift in from behind --
the farmer watches

Buckwheat [Haiku]

blossoming buckwheat
pretends to be a path
behind the ripe rice

Ripe Rice [Haiku]

fields of ripe rice
stretch to the horizon
to meet smoky skies