Milky Glow Tanka

Posted on May 9, 2021 by B Gourley

boulder churned
water sloshes to mist,
sunlit white --
its milky glow rounds
the gentle riverbend

DAILY PHOTO: Two View of the Thu Bồn River

Posted on April 21, 2021 by B Gourley

POEM: Down the Valley [PoMo Day 9 – Haibun]

Posted on April 9, 2021 by B Gourley

The air was dry and the valley was dry. Tufts of yellow grass clung to the hillside and to the edges of the valley floor -- where they joined with the barren, brown tines of bleak shrubbery. In the riverbed, smooth stones and boulders sprawled to the shoulders, far wide of the feeble stream that flowed at the moment. The water ran gray, having come from the edges of a glacier that scoured its way down a granite channel. And in the "V" far ahead, clouds as thick as the mountains were being lifted and dropped over a snowcapped peak, pretending they'd bring their moisture into this arid landscape.

mountain clouds
may become your fog, or
may sit in wait

Phnom Penh Limerick [PoMo Day 7: Limerick]

Posted on April 7, 2021 by B Gourley

There was an old woman from Phnom Penh
who liked to canoe now and again,
but boating Tonlé Sap --
despite compass and map --
she'd forget which way it flowed, now-and-then.

[Note: The Tonlé Sap is one of the few rivers in the world that changes its flow each year due to the rainy season surge. (As opposed to owing to daily tidal surges — which are more common.)]

POEM: Mystical River Moment [PoMo – Day #2: Shakespearean Sonnet]

Posted on April 2, 2021 by B Gourley

The burbling sounds did clarify my mind.
Somehow, the flowing stream was one with me,
and sitting down just at the riverbend,
I felt more flowing rhythm than I could see.

Some part of me was whisked in search of sea,
though my body sat at the muddy edge.
I know not how a part of me could flee --
just pure potential, being on a ledge.

I lost the river like one loses blood.
It's there, but [unseen] becomes all and none.
Each is swept along swiftly by a scud,
but seem so still when you and it are one.

The mystic moment comes then flits away,
and I am left with nothing fine to say.