Three Seasonal Haikus fae 60N

1.

Black rhone pipes on a wall,
mouth open to grey skies -
hush.


2.

Solitary raindrops
fixated on small panes -
time out.

3.

Beware of illusions,
colours slide off rainbows -
splash!



September 2010

spirit of the great sky

sun king
roi soleil

da muckle staar

and when we look at close level, I see rusty iris in meadows...

Searching for the spirit of the great heart under [Acania's] sky...

Catching the atlantic sunset... From the tip of our hill, where we felt the mechanics of a greater world.

and remembered a peerie lass lost and fragile from a rainworld who was dreaming about that star, and how it looked...Like a flower, lemon, penny...

TAKE MY HEART AWAY...

Sing me a song,

that taste of freedom

and lead the child to the vision,

as we wrap ourselves in crimson...

In my Arcanian dream,

I felt your warmth,

I saw it all.

Always back to the shore...

saturday dusk treasures

I love my island at sunset.

Fire reverberates on each sandgrain; sandstones find pleasure on washed kelp... Feathers and stones always write stories in that earth tongue one does not always understand.

 As feet find their roots in wet sand, I become one with Arcania.

There, on my way to daily walk by the shore, I kept in mind the text I read earlier that day, which I received from our curach skipper Macdougall. To my humble nomadic heart, it resonated like a message in a bottle. It speaks of continental inscriptions: geographaphs, chronographs, phonographs and paragraphs. It notably took me back to Gulliver, Friday and Robinson Crusoe. 

 Hernan Diaz
This bridge of sand allows such trek. From mainland to island - just as Kenneth White runs away from motorways of western civilisations! My sandbrige provides the shoormal - this critical edge as Diaz calls it; rite of passage to my topical paradise, where north Atlantic protects its natural causeway at high tides, like some self-defence mechanism... Others can look from the distance or wander through without knowing...
It's big enough to sustain all kinds of assaults, pulls of the moon and man-made signatures.  The water acts as a rubber and deletes traces from one's feet. 

Earlier this year, I painted it with pixels. This blog entry was entitled Snapshots from Arcania     ...A summer before that, I painted it with words.                                    

Hairst, Harvest Moon, Autumnal Equinox

Tomorrow rhymes with equal time.

sun,

hairst,

harvest moon,

magic of equilibrium -

it has not shun at equinox since '91...

Hairst, Harvest, Fall... festival

 
This is the second festival of the season of harvest - at the beginning of the harvest, at  Lammas (1 August), winter retreated to its underworld, now at the Autumn Equinox, it comes back to earth.  Harvest Home marks a time of rest after hard work, and a ritual of thanksgiving for the fruits of the world.
This is the time to look back on the past year - what has been achieved and learnt, and to plan for the future. 

Not a time to mourn the decrepitude of summer... But time to celebrate balance within our boreal world.

 equinox

The sun's like an orange,

the earth, 

like an apple...

first gale, a tin whistler, who jumps into puddles;

the moon's like a lamp post,

that keeps us safe

at night...

Hairst, harvest,

equinox,

go and tell the sand man,

first ground frost's a medal that shines on dried flowers,

as we turn hands of time.

© Nat Hall 2010

celebrating the autumn equinox

nomadic thoughts

adventure day

I love my archipelago.

There are just enough islands to hop onto and embrace its myriad of facets either on your own or with friends...

An end of summer trip to Shetland's most northerly isles of Yell and Unst acts as detox from daily grinding of our lives.  We picked up friends by the roadside and went to explore a few tracks, ferry terminals and carparks, as Alistair was not afraid of taking his 53-seater machine down to the edge of the water.

Yell is a glorious in September.
This 17 mile long island is Shetland's second largest lump of peat...
And yet treasures began at Toft on the mainland, where an otter greeted that Saturday morning along boulders.
 
Ulsta, West Sandwick, Mid-Yell, Bayanne House right by the burn (stream)... Like magic names right to Gutcher, where we pit-stopped at The Wind Dog (Café) before crossing to magic Unst.

Morning showers did not damper spirits. I saw your eyes on the island. Yell, Shetland, UK

 The café feels like a saloon, the final outpost located at the edge of some blended taste of salty and peaty frontier. There we sat down and shared a homebake and a cup. Andy made us feel just at home. 

The second crossing only lasts five minutes to Belmont, Unst. There, on the way to Baltasound, I tied my hands to humlibaand, as the tarmac narrowed further...

To Uyeasound and its harbour, where I found flowers inside boots and a dragon among lush leaves. ...Remnants from the old artificial world, when Shetlanders had to trade fish, hand-knitted socks, shawls and gansies for the meagrest of subsistance. Those precious morsels of rye bread, tabacco, brandy... Luxury.

Unst's old beehives sleep through the stones. Unst

Today, each bay remains tranquil. No more drifters, coopers, gutters, as herring no longer their king. Every time I retrace steps around the shore at Uyeasound or Baltasound, I stand like a child to the wind and hear the song of ancient oars that survived gales and disasters.

boat haven

 Amidst rivets and fishing nets, my nomadic heart feels at home.  I've never rowed on open sea and yet I feel each humly baand...

That connection so nomadic when I once asked a boat builder from Carbeth what it feels like to float inside a coracle...

http://humblyband.wordpress.com/ 

I said I wanted to write poetry and graffiti the calico...
She said, "let's ride the Atlantic."

Coracle. Here's the one I found yesterday inside the Unst Boat Haven shed!

Ruth once built one with her own hands... Took it to water for a ride and her spirit now runs further, as she began to fabricate a bigger craft.

Inside her shed grows a currach. 


You see, your spirit raves around my archipelago, as I dream of expedition SW from Auld Rock and Roost, where tidal currents never rest... Where North Atlantic meets North Sea. sumburgh light Last week alone, I watched that episode of Coast, and wandered around West Ireland, where men rowed currachs through wild waves... Around icebergs, north to Faroe and beyond. Mind you, their craft was designed to tame the might of our north Atlantic! from Galway to Baltimore

That episode nourished my dream, as we returned to the mainland.

creative mathematica

7 haikus from A2.2

First shape, square -

straight-sided just like hell,

now let's go in circles.

All angles seem insane,

sakura lost in space -

parallel universe.

Second shape, rectangle -

swallows might lose their heads,

the imperfect blueprint.

Not two degrees the same,

think of diagonals -

grasshoppers on the wing.

Now to shape no.3,

your eyes on a tripod -

a triangle can't lie.

Next shape is a rhombus.

Now look through the rainbow -

what a strange animal!

Kite in September sky,

Now we hike a mountain;

Pythagoras is dead.

14 September 2010


Today's inspiration emerged from the classroom - this is one example of Geopoetics in action :-)

from hellery to heaven

will power

Last Thursday was a hellery.

Doom, iron cast inside my head, as I sat inside a cold room filled with benches, hollow voices, fears and remorse.
When one feels collapse of the world, all slips away through tiles and stones... La comedia del arte dressed in black.
Thank goodness, friends surrounded me.
I shall remember it for a while - wet flagstones recorded our every step until drizzle turned into fog.

and so is hairst

September filled with silver heads, even iris leaves turn to rust, as chlorophyll becomes weaker... Everything changes around us - precocious signs of early gale, the haste with which birds fly away; even ravens seem much darker. Our every sound, voe and wick become a paddock filled with horses' manes. Soon we shall vanish in blackness.

this precious little book of zen

Zen is easy. Zen is life, exactly as it is, here and now. At the heart of Zen is a sense that we are all part of something greater, just like each wave, part of the ocean.

So I went out to be at one with the rest of our universe and stirred my yin inside my yang... 

 

string of haikus 

 

Plop, plop, plop,

precocious splash kissed our slate tiles -

love letter from autumn.

Feel my shimmer,

equinox breeze through heather bells,

purple wind chime.

 

 

 

 Shamanic world,

drum and birdsong inside your head -

feel the feathers of the blackbird.

 

© Nat Hall 2010

 

...On a lighter note, Kevin MacNeil would smile. I still vividly remember how pitiful I sounded at his haiku workshop series in Lerwick a few autumns ago... There you go, poet-friend and reader, may hellery turn to heaven!  ;-) 

exposure

And the weekend started with a bang...

I burnt the pains au chocolat on Saturday morning. 

Just two hours before a reading at Wordplay, I carbonated our breakfast beyond recognition, as I was reading out loud Power of Place, that second piece of verse for Karen's event. Wooopppsss! Very swiftly, I made for amends by invating David to lunch at da Peerie Shop Café in Lerwick. Thank goodness, the soup and the reading went down far better!

Martin's happy feet at Da Gadderie yesterday afternoon, Saturday 4 September, as the Four Seasons in Shetland exhibition opened officially to the public in Lerwick.The Shetland Museum & Archives lit on all lights onto some 74 framed works as well as some 328 digital images projected on a screen. 

We, the gang of photographers & visual artists, gathered and met friendly faces who came to discover what the Islesburgh Photographic Club could offer.  The result is an eclectic collection of images taking your eyes and hearts through the four seasons around the nordic archipelago - voar, simmer, hairst and winter, as captured through some 20 different viewfinders... There is something for everyone.

The exhibition is on till 10 October and the Islesburgh Photographic Club  remains open to talented world watchers :)

power of place

Let's look at it at sand level.

Our every move begins on shore.

When Shetland Arts' Karen Emslie began to share ideas about a community project celebrating Shetland's Architecture & Place,  a few ideas ignited my creative heart. 

Placemaking,
Past, present, future,
Passionate about rocks and stones,

Power of Place was born

http://www.powerofplace.co.uk/

To my humble understanding, man builds, demolishes and rebuilds through love and anger. However, man's twist of fate or choice of shore determines his will to erect edifices. And when I look at the island, I touch and feel its every stone.

I owe my life to a sextant.

Today we walk that bridge of sand –
we wade in haste tangled in lace in such earthly
rubberband grace,
we long to reach that green
island.

I look for stars drowned in ocean.


World traveller
W by NW,
let’s taste each mile,
nautical dream, where we slip away from pale sun;

you write your name on a storm beach
with a pebble from my homeland –
from tide to tide,
where shadows stand
rollers won’t breach,

what does salt mean away
from lips?

I owe our love to a
sextant.

Nat, northern garden,
30 December 07

 

Tonight, my world belongs to dusk. 

...Tomorrow, I shall add my stone to this great community's adventure by sharing a few lines of poetry at lunchtime in Room 12 during our annual local book festival. And then, leg it to one of Shetland's most exciting buildings erected at Hay's Dock to celebrate the place through another collaborative project entitled Four Seasons in Shetland.

Four Seasons in Shetland exhibition 2010

My love for the Auld Rock grew out of its mystic powers - sheer ruggedness, raw, dynamic power of place :-)