haibun

#411 – November 2024

jpallen Nature Life , , , 5 Comments

Downtown Spokane, in the morning, I walk with the homeless as they move from their night places to their day places.  We pass by the daycare window, the children eating breakfast wave. In the afternoon people are going to work, passing through, stopping by for a coffee or food at the cafe or groceries at the local market. Throughout the day, trains pass through making their usual sounds, the blowing whistles and the clicks and squeaks of the tracks. Their presence is felt in the air.  The sidewalk and buildings vibrate as the trains pass through, some going east to west, some west to east.

Photograph of the green leaves in the window light, bursting from the soil of a potted corn plant between two stems.
Corn plant (dracaena fragrans)
Conference room corner/rattling/window corn plant

#397 – September 2024

jpallen Nature Life , , 3 Comments

I am guessing it is Friday.  Since I retired I’ve lost track of the days.  I think it is Friday because of the activity after a few quiet evenings.  There is the sound of children laughing and crying. The scent of an outdoor grill.  Suddenly a crowd cheers and there is a big “boom” indicating the local football team has scored. For a moment there is a silent shudder through the harvested Palouse hills. I think to myself, it is time to prepare the garden bed to plant garlic in the coming weeks.

A night photograph the full moon rising over the silhouette of harvested Palouse hills.
Pulling over/on a gravel road… autumn/only the moon knows

March 31st, #168

jpallen City Life , , , 2 Comments

I enter my saved location (work) in Google Maps. It lets me know it will be a twenty-two minute drive. Google is unaware I intend to avoid the highway and take the airport loop, adding a few more minutes.

Before leaving I turn on the radio and sync my phone. What playlist today? Reggae, Rock (70’s), Classical Indian music, Blues, Baroque? Or maybe skip the music app altogether and try a station’s view of the morning news?

I go with Classical Indian Music.

25…35…45…50 mph

her many droplets
burn into the mountain
morning fog

I return to the highway. Drivers wrap around me like an itchy, but warm wool blanket.

50…45…35…25 mph

Google Maps lets me know I’ve arrived at my destination (work).

Right on time.

I turn the key.

flowering
over a babbling brook
without a quiver

Rose Creek Preserve, #137

jpallen Nature Life , , , 2 Comments

We started up the trailhead, leaving our car alone in the parking lot.  We walked single file, you in front, as we weaved our way though leafless branches stuck in winter’s shadow heavy with autumn rain.  It was quiet. The only sound was the crunch our feet on fallen leaves and sticks scattered on the wood chip path. The day was unusually warm, but it felt cool under the weight of thicket’s canopy. We reached the edge of south hill’s shadow into the warm wind and sun; you reached out to hold my hand.

Photography, the Palouse, a low winter sun, fresh winter wheat

out-stretched rigid wings 
wind weaves; feather folds shiver 
her whispering cry 

November Gallery:

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late summer flowers, #115

jpallen City Life, Nature Life , , , , 4 Comments

1.

There is small patch of dry soil on the corner of 6th and Jackson streets. Two of its sides are boarded by a fence at the edge of a paved parking lot. The other two sides by the curve of the sidewalk. Because we have had little rain this patch of ground has gotten little water. The soil is as white and hard as the concrete that surrounds it. I would have paid little attention to it except for sprouting in the barely discernible crack between the sidewalk and the soil is an Indian Blanket whose blooms are saturated in reds and yellows. The Indian blanket is a drought hardy plant, but I was amazed that something so beautiful and vibrant could come from, in my view, the harsh conditions of the hard and dry soil.

while the day’s traffic
stops and goes to red and green…
a silent witness

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August Monthly Gallery:

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Click on any image to view in the gallery. Use the side arrows to cycle through the images. To exit the gallery, click on the “X” in the upper right hand corner.

Previous monthly galleries

late summer waves, #114

jpallen City Life, Nature Life , , 6 Comments

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Last night I went for a walk intending to watch the sunset. I got a late start and when walking over the hill into the canyon on a dirt trail above the South Fork of the Palouse River, I found the sun had already set. It was that momentary pause between day and night when boundaries disappear and colors blend. I find a beauty in this pause and lose myself in the conversation where for a moment all are talking and listening in silence.

As the darkness deepened I remained lost when the night conversation began with the calling of Crickets and Katydids. In the pause and into the night there were no boundaries or a sense of time, a felt a hint of something beyond myself. After returning home I thought about the conversations I participate in daily with my neighbors, driving from one place to another weaving from lane to lane, and those I spend the day with. Two questions came to mind; where does this feeling go when walking through the pause from night into day and how can I carry it to silently participate in the day’s conversations?

Palouse hills echo
rimmed in light years moonlight gray
coyotes yip-yipping

Hands, #109

jpallen City Life, Nature Life , , 6 Comments

1.

Rolling from the zucchinis she was holding, a green pepper dropped to the floor.

It bounced and rolled to a stop and I bent over to pick it up.

The green pepper is now in my hand, after leaving the hand that she used to pick it up from its place on the produce shelf.

Placed there by the hand of the produce stocker who pulled it from a box placed there by another’s hand.

Picked by the hand of another from a plant in a field grown from a seed planted by another’s.

I stand up and take a few steps, “Excuse me, I believe your dropped this,” my hand handing it back to hers.

a Chickadee sings
up high in a Cottonwood
swirling smoky air


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Water falls, #103

jpallen City Life, Nature Life , , , , 2 Comments

1.0

Flowers behind Bars

Melissa and I recently traveled to the Oregon Coast to spend a week with family at Tierra Del Mar (which in English translates to Land of the Ocean). The first night we stayed in Biggs Junction. On day two we stopped for a hike in the Columbia River Gorge. We hiked a five mile loop visiting many waterfalls and parts of the 2017 Eagle Creek fire.

I had driven through the Gorge on I-84 a few times since the fire. However, it was not until this trip on our drive home (we took Washington State Highway 14 which follows the north side of the Columbia River) that I was able to take in the immensity of the fire.

I wondered if I behave this way toward our natural resources and climate change? I hike (drive) in water daily: washing my face, making tea, cooking, showering, watering the garden. I use water, but do I see the immensity of my use? Do I realize how precious water is to my physical existence, allowing me to think, feel, and love?

I recall a Thich Nhat Hanh gatha I first noticed in Spanish. I know a few Spanish words and in this writing, agua, Tierra, and gratitud, caught my attention. I found the gatha later in Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, peace is every breath: a practice for our busy lives:

“Water Flows from high mountain sources.
Water runs deep in the Earth.
Miraculously, water comes to us.
I am filled with gratitude.” [1]

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Spilling out freely water's sparkling gemstones I splash sleepy eyes

Spilling in my hands
water’s sparkling gemstones
I splash sleepy eyes

In a mist of blue above green waves of sea-foam charred water falls

In a mist of blue
above green waves of sea-foam
charred water falls

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Photo Gallery: Water Falls -Columbia River gorge.

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Click on any image to view in the gallery. Use the side arrows to cycle through the images. To exit the gallery, click on the “X” in the upper right hand corner.

[1] – Thich Nhat Hanh, peace is every breath, (HarperOne; Reprint Kindle edition, 2011), pg. 12

Spring Valley, #96

jpallen Nature Life , , , 4 Comments

1.

When he took me, the two-track was hardly visible. The grass was bending over the hood, as high as the windows of the Rambler. The shore was a rich dark brown scattered with white stones.

When I took her, the grasses were short and faded covered in dust from the gravel road. On our walk down the trail 1 collect discarded bottles, cans, wrappers, and bait containers, putting them a the bag that once held our sandwiches. The shore is ground to a fine dust.

Quiet.

“Pop,” the opening of a can echoes, loud voices follow.

She turns and says, “It’s okay Pops.”

Glassy lake surface
Splash! fish clutched-Osprey talons
Glassy lake surface

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Waking from a daze 
dreamt I was a soaring bird
as I fly away

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