Echoes of Sounds and Silence, Haibun

I hear a poet on the radio today and learn that one definition of clamor is silence. It’s a word with opposite meanings—meaning loud, insistent noise and silence both. My mind, too, seems full of opposing thoughts, but it’s never truly silent, even in my sleep. Ideas, voices, songs, bits of this and that spin around non-stop within my brain, clamoring for attention, moving at high speed like race cars speeding around a track. Or, like meandering streams or comets that leave a fiery trail before vanishing in space–the poems that die unborn. They are all the birds in the dawn chorus and the night’s humming moon. They ebb and flow like the tide. I can stop and focus on one or more, if I choose. Sometimes I don’t choose.

 

birdsong wakes the day

growing with summer sunlight,

echoing in dreams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is for dVerse, where Frank has asked us to write a Haibun Monday poem on “silent sounds,” “all those thoughts and chatter that go through our minds. . .”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Muse: Haibun

I am dreaming. I stand on a beach in a wild and beautiful land. There is a woman there with burnished skin, like cherry wood, polished and glowing. She’s clothed in a gown of flowers–red, yellow, and white buds that seem to open and bloom before my eyes. As she walks, the air around her parts in song. I hear it, carried on a breeze scented by the sea and tropical blossoms. The sun shines above me, but casts no shadows. I think time has stopped, or perhaps it has no meaning in this place. The woman approaches a doorway at the edge of sand and jungle. Smiling, she turns and gestures for me to follow. I calmly take a step—then wake–but I remember.

infinite doorway

from dream-time the muse beckons

in vision of light

indigo night turns rosy

dawn trailing whispered secrets

 

D. Howard Hitchcock, “Waikiki Beach in Sunlight,” [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This is for Colleen Chesebro’s Poetry Challenge. The prompt words are calm and wild.

I wrote a poem in my dreams about a week ago. When I woke, I couldn’t remember it. All I remembered was one of my daughters writing about the poem, “OMG, OMG—that poem!” (My subconscious gives me pep talks.) And I had an image of a woman, Caribbean perhaps, dressed in a brightly flowered dress.

I am still crazy-busy writing a final entry for another one that didn’t come through from a contributor. I apologize for being so behind in reading so many wonderful posts and missing challenges and prompts. I’m trying to catch up as I can.