"Reflection "A Haibun with a title :)

Another "how" I write poetry is from my photographic
images - this one is a blended image of idyllic days
on Ocracoke Island - and will hopefully be a
poem in a few days.

Reflection (a Haibun with a title :)

When I was a child, I loved a willow tree.  She embraced me with cascading, filtered-green light, offered me a haven where butterflies were fairies and sprites.  I peeked out into the world and retreated safely within her golden embrace when the season turned.  I think poetry starts here, although I wouldn't write a word or fashion a rhyme for nearly forty years.

Perhaps verse took root when I lost myself in Garland's voice; me a young girl believing beyond the rainbow was possible; eyes closed, hammock rocking gently, cat curled into my side, singing along prayerfully, quietly, low notes almost a vibrato.

Maybe poesy blossomed one summer's day when I walked our lot line to the river the Suak and Fox called the Sinnissippe, where I dipped my toes in the slow moving waters, closed my eyes feeling history clear through my fingertips.  Touched my hands to the old oaks, wondering if Black Hawk ever leaned against these very trees that dip and sway beside river's edge.

Or possibly it was a humid day beneath Grandmother's cherry tree, the perfumed shade and  stickiness of the sinfully sour temptations I popped into my mouth - likening it to transgressions, forgiveness.  My first metaphor?

For me, poetry is rarely a bursting desire or a secret unearthed, more often a pausing, a quietude that invites reflection.  Occasionally it replicates labor pains so intense I swear it's the last one, but after a few days my eye sees an image my heart wants to hold or relive, and well, I've rarely been recognized for my discipline and restraint.


Fairy tales and mortality etched on parchment and stone; seasons change.

by Margaret Bednar

linked with "dVerse Poets Pub - Haibun Monday - Who? What? Why?"  What, Who fashioned us to be a poet - Why?  I've extracted from a few old poems I've written over the years as, after a few attempts, I realized I've already expressed myself to the best of my ability in answer to this question. So a bit of a refashioned poem from several of my earlier writes.

I've been writing since 2010 - My son probably inspired me to finally gather the courage to write - I think an artist is often a bit shy at first to "put it out there".   One of my very first poems was an acrostic poem written November 10, 2010:

Mother's Pearls Remembered