Poets Salon: Days of Condolence

POETS SALON

– 08/25/21

Hosted by Kath Abela Wilson

unconsolable… still
I keep your words, your art
your texts your emails
your paintings your photos
your fantasies forever

~ Kath Abela

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Embroidery by Briony James

Elisa Theriana

My country is in deep trouble, everyday a new record breaking of daily covid cases. We are massively under testing so the reported number could be just a small fraction of the real one. It has touched my own family. Too many people have died.

Days of Condolences

summer drizzle
a sparrow
losing its grip

mourning salute
the band of scarecrows

all the clouds
all the sorrows
gasping for words

fallow field
into the red dust
someone we loved

raining angel’s feathers
days of condolences

one last bow
the eulogy
left unsaid

Bandung, July 14th 2021.
in the harrowing time of covid 19.

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Ron C. Moss

Between Heaven and Hell

A fast-moving fire has broken out on a declared total fire ban day. Brigades are being called in from all over the district as the hot, dry conditions worsen, giving this huge blaze a terrible potential. We’re chasing the smoke that races across the skyline and into the valleys. I’m blinded by it as I struggle to keep the truck on the road. We take up a position defending a house in the direct path of the fire front. A frail elderly couple is attempting to cool the walls with a garden hose. I scream at them to go inside. A blast of searing heat from the flames in the gully below slams into us. Thick smoke chokes me and stings my eyes. I open the hose line to send jets of water onto the dwelling.

I realize I’m alone—I’ve been cut off from my crew member. The thunderous noise becomes surreal and burning debris twists and curls in the blackness of smoke and ash. I drop low on my haunches, gasping for air…

between heaven and hell
the touch of a friend’s hand
on my shoulder

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Passion flowers (Photo – Briony James)

Briony James

sometimes it’s rain
droplets of solace
the heart swells
sometimes the sun or wind
turns the ache to hope

sighs long for echoes
tears for showers
a banana leaf creaks and cries

diamond drops
gleaming in fresh-washed sunshine
smiles through tears

sorrows in waves
a tidal flow cracks our shells
our hearts ache
but ache, like seeds in rain,
springs into love

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Days of Condolence: Quotes and Credits

Elisa Theriana, from Bandung, Indonesia, is currently working from home as a computer programmer. While it seems this pandemic is the acid test for mankind, Elisa believes this is also the time to see the best of humanity.

Ron C. Moss lives in Tasmania and has been writing haiku and related genres since 1999. In that time he has published over a thousand haiku worldwide and his haiku appear in many collections and prestigious anthologies. His first collection, The Bone Carver, won the Snapshot Press Book Award, the Haiku Foundation’s Touchstone Award an Honourable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Awards. Ron is highly regarded in the international haiku community and a member of many societies and groups. He is often asked to judge competitions and has acted as an editor on a wide variety of projects. Ron is also a visual artist and award-winning photographer, often combining his poetry and art online and in various exhibitions. He has travelled to New Zealand and the United States to give presentations and workshops of his art and poetry. Ron’s second collection, Bushfire Moon, contains haiku and prose written about his experiences as a Tasmanian volunteer firefighter. His haibun Between Heaven and Hell, included above, is an excerpt from this book. His latest collection Broken Starfish brings together haiku from over twenty years of writing and publishing in leading journals. This collection also contains simple ink paintings by Ron that link and shift with the haiku. Both Bushfire Moon and Broken Starfish are available directly from Ron at ronmoss8@gmail.com.

Briony James lives in Altadena, California. She says: “Love and loss have become so magnified these past months, We all need poetry and Nature to help us find the future within the present and past. Finding rainbows in puddles. It isn’t always easy, but I seem to spy them here in the foothills.”

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Send short poems, haiku, senryu, tanka, cherita haibun, tanka prose, short prose poems, etc., or your own unique approach, to Kath Abela (click here to email her directly) or via a Facebook message (@Kathabela).

1. Send directly in email or message, no attachments, except photos.
2. Suggest an original theme you would like to see, or consider:
   Openings, Taking care of one another, Encouragement, Good humor in challenging times, Consolations.
   
3. Send a short bio, and comments on the theme.
4. Send several photos or artwork by you, or a friend that would complement your writing if possible. Include one landscape (horizontal) photo or artwork.
   
5. We like to vary the poets, but please send every few months if you like, and contributions can be saved for later. Kath Abela will answer within a week from your sending.

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