Haiku #1518 and Tanka

Tanka…Nobe Okuri 野辺送り

a neighbor’s
funeral in new year week
fluffy snow flowers
from heaven
falling on his coffin…

©2018Rika Inami稲美里佳

My answer:

haiku #1518

snowflakes from heaven
a winter coat of sadness
covers his coffin

© Rebecca Sanchez 2018

Rika Inami is a well-known tanka poet who writes in her language and English. She takes walks in her native Japan taking photos and composing tanka about them. She’s also a friend of mine and a very sweet lady.

She posts her work daily on Google Plus and if you answer her work she’ll post it on her blog. This was my answer to her photo (above) and tanka.

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Walking Through Doors

Walking Through Doors

The doorway arrived in the nick of time
at the stroke of midnight before the first fireworks
wide open, brightly illuminated and full of promise
on the brink, I took my departure.

New doors open to us throughout life
some require keys before opening
some demand a pound or two of flesh
a lesson learned, an entrance earned.

Sometimes we balk at the opening
without realizing we’re on a new threshold
like not recognizing the dawn of a new day
letting that door slam shut in our faces.

Cooling our heals in the vestibule
aware and anxious to make our emergence
an unmarked exit opens to the unknown
that first step can be a real bitch!

© Rebecca Sanchez 2018

So many doorways so little time. Written with my friends at Poets United for the prompt doorway(s).

Haiku #123117

haiku #123117

an autumn leaf
making way for fresh spring growth
falls, with a flourish

© Rebecca Sanchez 2017

This is what I used to make my artwork (part of a larger photograph I took.) I caught a leaf falling, not only that, but it had a hole in it I could see through. It was suspended there just for my camera. I think it’s magic catching something like this while it’s happening. Perfect for this prompt and the last day of 2017. Happy New Year!

Written with Haiku Horizons (my last poem of 2017) for the prompt fresh. Shared with Poets United also.

Happy Holidays And Well Wishes

Can you read my Tshirt?

Hello, my friends!

I’ve been riding my bicycle daily while taking photographs of my surroundings on the San Francisco Bay. I use my photos for my art and writing. The bike riding has been so nice the past few months it just began to get cold here in California. It feels a lot like Christmas today and I’m preparing to go on a Christmas Day ride with my long-time friend and roommate James.

I’ve missed you all and will be back next year to write. If anything, I am coming back rejuvenated and ready for the new year. I’m lucky enough to enjoy my biking year round and it keeps me fit and happy.

Merry Christmas my friends! My many “looks” as I do enjoy dressing for the ride. You can see how the weather has changed my looks.

I want to say Merry Christmas to my friends at Poets United, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, and dVerse~Poets Pub I hope it was enjoyable. Merry Xmas to Haiku Horizons and the other places I drop into sometimes!

Thanks, dVerse~Poets Pub for including me in your analogy I hope to afford to buy one soon! I can’t wait to read more of the free version. My very first time in a book. It makes it real, you know?

Some of you I’ve known since Magpie Tales which was the beginning of linking with groups for me. Tess was a fun person and every week her boyfriend would read her poem for us. Tess had some “events” at her mansion and it was a memorable time. Tess Kincaid is doing well and living out a fairy tale ending in the UK with her “English Man.”

While writing in that group, people spread out to the above-mentioned groups and beyond. It’s nice to know we’re all as close as WordPress and Blogger moving in the same circles. We’re an impressive international group of writers I’m proud to be part of.

Merry Christmas friends! Enjoy it, the new year cometh and changes are afoot!

A Very Good Year

A Very Good Year

The month of December has come to a close
the weather has brought a new blanket of snow
Christmas has faded from Rudolph’s red nose
looks like it’s time for the new year.

To the party we go with our friends in tow
faces aglow and dressed in our best
jollification where ever we go
looks like it’s time for the new year.

Champagne is flowing as midnight draws near
resolutions are made as we watch the ball drop
we raise up our glasses to toast to good cheer
that this New Year, be a very good year!

© Rebecca Sanchez 2011

Here’s to wishing you, and yours, a very good year from the bottom of my heart!

The poem was published on Bekkie In Wonderland in 2011, and now again, in 2016. The cards are copies of vintage New Year cards/postcards from the Victorian Era.

Shared with Poets United, Imaginary Garden Of Real Toads and all friends I’ve written with over the years!

About “Time-Balls”

The actual notion of a ball “dropping” to signal the passage of time dates back long before New Year’s Eve was ever celebrated in Times Square. The first “time-ball” was installed atop England’s Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1833. This ball would drop at one o’clock every afternoon, allowing the captains of nearby ships to precisely set their chronometers (a vital navigational instrument).

Around 150 public time-balls are believed to have been installed around the world after the success at Greenwich, though few survive and still work. The tradition is carried on today in places like the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, where a time-ball descends from a flagpole at noon each day – and of course, once a year in Times Square, where it marks the stroke of midnight not for a few ships’ captains, but for over one billion people watching worldwide.

About time-balls source: Google search.