This morning I walked along a row of white blossom trees flaunting their hectic beauty when suddenly I caught sight of a cluster of dry, brown leaves hanging on among the snowy petals. This image tugged at my heart strings.
So here are three haiku to mark a moment, when I stopped short in my tracks, on a sunshiny Spring day and thought (like the Zen poets) about the beautiful sadness of things (mo no aware)…
haiku 1
Scraps of winter cling
doggedly on to the mad
white flurry of Spring
haiku 2
And on this Spring tree
remnants of dowdy Winter –
white petals, brown leaves
haiku 3
Like a human heart…
this tree holds fragments of drab
Winter and bright Spring
© Anita Patel, 2016
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Published by anitapatel
Anita Patel is a writer (and retired teacher) who has lived in Canberra since 1982. She is as Australian as a banana paddle pop and a pair of sandy thongs and she is also a part of the Asian diaspora. Her collections of poetry are: 'Petals Fall' published by Recent Work Press in 2022 (https://recentworkpress.com/product/petals-fall) and 'A Common Garment' published by Recent Work Press in 2019 (https://recentworkpress.com/product/a-common-garment/).
In 2019, she collaborated with acclaimed artist, Annie Franklin, to produce 'Heart Stitched' (a story - in paintings and poetry - of the quirky, unexpected and dazzling layers in the natural world). They received significant support from Nancy Sever (Nancy Sever Gallery). In 2022, their second book 'Grief and Beauty' (which arose from the 2019-20 bushfires) was published - once again with support from Nancy Sever.
She has had work published in the Canberra Times, in Conversations (Pandanus Press, ANU), in Block 9, Burley Journal, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Demos Journal, Mascara Literary Review, Not Very Quiet Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, Backstory Journal, Other Terrain Journal, Pink Cover Zine, FemAsia Magazine, Plumwood Mountain Journal, Eucalypt: a tanka journal and Print Issue 42 of The Blue Nib Journal. Her work is also included in the following anthologies: The Australian Poetry Anthology (Vol. 8), 'This Gift This Poem' (Puncher and Wattman) and 'What We Carry' (Recent Work Press). Her children’s poems are included in an anthology 'Pardon My Garden' (Harper Collins). Her poem “Women’s Talk” won the ACT Writers Centre Poetry Prize in 2004 and her poetry was selected for and published in Australian Book Review’s States of Poetry ACT, 2018.
She has performed her work at the Canberra Multicultural Festival, Poetry on the Move Festival, Noted Festival, Floriade Fringe Festival, In Other Words Festival (at Lost in Books, Fairfield), the Queensland Poetry Festival, the National Folk Festival, at Smith’s Alternative, at Word in Hand (Glebe) and La Mama Poetica.
Her reviews, “Found in Translation”, on the performances of four Japanese women poets and their translators at Poetry on the Move Festival, 2017 and “No More Silent Waiting”, on the anthology Autonomy edited by Kathy D’Arcy (2018) have been published by Not Very Quiet Journal. She was the guest editor for Issue 2 of Not Very Quiet Journal. View all posts by anitapatel
teapotsandincense 
Some images are very powerful but it takes a poet to be powerfully receptive, reflective and inventive -well done!
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Thank you, lovely friend!
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Your haiku makes me miss Canberra in Spring. Especially that walk around the lake!! Thanks Anita.xx
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I miss walking with you, Neri! It is a gorgeous time…
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Thanks Neri…I miss walking with you! It is a lovely time of year… 🙂
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All lovely Anita. But I particularly like the first one because winter sure does cling doggedly on, in the face of our yearning for mad spring! And of course I like the third one about our confused human hearts.
BTW our Manchurian pears are almost all green. We went to Sydney on Friday and they were still in blossom and got back on Sunday and most of the blossoms had gone. They are so beautiful, but so fleetingly so.
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Thanks for your lovely words…this is season of fleeting bitter sweet moments…:)
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