The End of a Beginning

The hardest thing we can do is create and at the same time the easiest because in true creation we’re really just a presence receiving and transposing wisdom in one form or another, in one language or another, in one medium or another into something that can be shared and anything that can be shared is both a teaching and a learning experience. Exactly why we’re here in the first place.

  To write poetry you work hard first at not being here and then of being extra conscious that you are a listening instrument and must hear words coming from beyond. Beyond you, your desk, your writing pad or computer, your home, your earth.

My eyesight is much worse than before but seeing less in this particular case might be an advantage, you don’t get so distracted by sideviews, although little flashing lights are annoying. Seeing less may very well indicate seeing more on another plane.

So, I have spent my Spring writing Haikus... Zen poetry, three liners trying to capture a moment in time. My moment, no others. My impressions. My creations entirely.

I sit in my back garden and compose or ponder and try to compose and suddenly lost I’m awakening once more to the noise of living and on my once blank pages, scribbled words.

I play around with them, cluster them into sentences of 5 syllables, 7 syllables and again 5 syllables and I have a Haiku. Sounds easy. Is easy, once you consciously stop trying to do it.

A walk outside my front door, human contact, a bank or a store, a telephone call and it disappears... like smoke. That’s why Haikus are so difficult to complete. The world keeps stepping in and smashing the China... The proverbial Bull In The China Shop.

According to a centuries-old oriental tradition, the bull represents life energy, truth, and action. But once found the bull cannot be tethered, he must be free and one must seek him constantly (quoted from The Way of the Bull).

This free willed animal is much like Life itself. Or at least how it would be best live, free, full of energy, eternal learning and changing, growing greater by growing simpler, growing up by trimming down, being wise by questioning all facts and weighing both sides of all answers.

Pondering (call it meditating if you please), listening and placing what you heard into your life style with an Enter one. Throw out two... policy. Always downgrading rules and do not’s and growing freer as you advance in wisdom (call it spirituality, again , if you please).

So back to the beginning, by the end of spring I should have my book of Haikus ready for publishing.

I calculated three weeks and have spent over two months and probably need all of May so my time and Haiku’s time to be born didn’t match but we are finally closing into the end which will be the true beginning.

Until Tomorrow: The only thing that is certain for man is change. To battle change is to waste one’s time The battle can never be won. To become the willing ally of change is to assure oneself of life (Leo Buscaglia).

pratsd@hotmail.com