POETS SALON
– 9/11/19
Hosted by Kath Abela Wilson
At the foot of the stairs
the stones lay in wait…
Later, she began to carry them home.
They gradually took over her house—
from all the ledges and shelves
they stared down at her,
with their indecipherable markings…
Her third wish came true
when she began to eat them…
she began to hear them speak.*~ Kath Abela
*Excerpt from my book Figures of Humor and Strange Beauty, Glass Lyre Press, 2019
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Found stone face (Photo – Nikolay Grankin)
Nikolay Grankin
Long Journey
I grew up on the seashore among cliffs and stones. Maybe for this reason I have a special attitude to stones. Walking along the shore, I pick up a stone and imagine which the way it had to go before it got here. I imagine how the hot lava erupts to the surface of the earth and slowly cooling turns into a cliff. Then frost and heat, piercing wind, rain and snow destroy this cliff dividing it into the separate stones. And one of them, having made a long journey through rivers and seas, finally falls into my hands…
lines on the stone
the poor thing
survived so muchovercast day
a little girl on the beach
paints the stonesclear morning
a monk puts aside
the smooth stoneseashore
a boy throws a stone
towards the sunset
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Haiku Stone by Jeff Hoagland
Jeff Hoagland
back and forth
akitsu
carries the sunsummer breeze
the scent of juniper
in my tumblersmall poem
every dog
a criticsummer brook
perfect skipping stone
on the other sidebirdsong
my currency
not good here
I harvest my stones with care, on writing excursions to a nearby stream, where I live in Hopewell, New Jersey. I love haiku – the practice of haiku – but also love sharing haiku with others not necessarily seeking them. I have placed stones at businesses since it makes it more likely that the haiku will be seen. I don’t ask permission, they are simply a gift. At first they were all signed but now I like using “Stonefly” as my name, reserving some anonymity.
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Jizo stones made by kris moon
kris moon
Jizo represent “supreme spiritual optimism compassion, and universal salvation” writes Mark Shumacher. I had been sketching and painting Jizo statues and stones since I came to Japan in 1972.
In 1999, when my life was rapidly unraveling, I had some lovely white beach garden stones that gave me an idea. Maybe I could paint jizo on them and sell them. I showed them to my son and he said, “Mom you should give them away, not sell them.” So I started carrying some with me wherever I went, giving them to my students, friends, people on the train, cashiers, people at conferences, and always getting smiles in return. Then after 3/11 (2011), I started painting more to overcome my feeling of helplessness and to give peace to all those lost during, and because of, those disasters. I gave them to friends volunteering to give to survivors, and when I could go to Tohoku myself, I brought more.
I continue painting and giving them away as there is still so much suffering, and each stone represents something to hold onto, someone who remembers and cares.
as much a comfort
to release each face
from its pebble
as to see thanks on faces
of those who chose oneΟ
may our burdens
be lighter pebble
by pebble
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Found Stones (Photo – Nikolay Grankin)
The Beauty of Stones: Quotes and Credits
Nikolay Grankin collects his stones from the Black Sea near his home in Krasnodar, Russia, with his wife, two children, daughter and son, and grandson. He has been writing haiku for about ten years, two of them in English. His haiku have appeared in some online and print journals in both Russian and English.
Jeff Hoagland is the Education Director and Naturalist at the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association in New Jersey. He enjoys his very public love affair with all things wild and is happiest stream walking, calling owls, or exploring new habitats with his family and others. A lover of the printed and spoken word, Jeff began his haiku journey as an attempt to embrace and harvest those countless moments of awe and revelation in nature. Some of the haiku on his haiku stones first appeared in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Acorn, The Heron’s Nest, and Akitsu Quarterly.
kris moon (Kris Kondo) is a mother, new grandmother, artist, poet, and teacher living by a mountain river in Kyokawa Village in Kanagawa, Japan. She moved there from the USA and Canada in 1972 and has been studying and painting jizo stones since then. Her small painted pebbles have traveled internationally and give comfort to many worldwide. See her Mapping the Artist interview on ColoradoBoulevard.net.
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♣ We welcome and encourage your response, especially in the form of a short poem, by leaving a comment below.
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beautiful! I must mention that in Moss Beach, CA there is a sign stating to NOT take the beach stones…they are so different than any beach stones I have seen with their curving shapes and holes worn away by the currents. I confess, I did not obey this rule and have several in my collection (after almost 40 years and several moves across the country). I also collect heart shaped rocks found here in the Hamptons.
Skipping Stones
I don’t like walking stones.
I want them to bounce from
the tip of the San Clemente
Pier all the way to Vladivostok
where I was born. It’s too far
for me to see if they ever reach
destination. A swig of Vodka
from my hip flask helps
my next throw.
This feature is wonderful! Of special interest to me was the image of Kris Moon’s faces. She gave several to Geoff Sanderson, an English friend, when he visited Japan. He gifted one to me here in the U.S. they were so special. And so the stone makes its circle.