Poems (of old) and Haiku page 4

 

 

Yamadori — 2010

Poem written in January 1974

This poem was written in 1973 for a friend of mine who had recently given birth to a baby boy and who was having a few sleepless nights!!!

The 1st of a series of “Photo-poems” written in1973 when life was pretty dark

The poem below was written in February 1974 (The Year of the Tiger) when I was 36 years old. It was another of the poems written in the ‘dark years’.  Committing my anxieties into poems was a good way for me to escape from my depression…..a therapy I strongly recommend.

The Year of the Tiger

Pensive movement; paced oscillations

My mind aspin

My freedom to win — this year

The Year of the Tiger.

Scorching heart ablaze,

Pulsating in this maze;

This cage — all around me — imprisoned

Would I be free,

Ever?

•

In mergence with the jungle bamboo

Afar away from the human zoo

The Tiger is as one with light

Free as a shadow

Free from sight — of all,

Yet sighting all around him — a Ghost,

Alive only to himself;

Watching with cool surveillance — his kingdom.

Majestic calm,

Only the drone of the Tse-tse

Else, all else would be silent.

•

And yet, arace is my heart, apace is my heart

In search for freedom from this cage

I was born into,

In this the year of the tiger

•

Three Tigers have entered my life — since birth

Their stripes astrangling what girth

That is left of me

Oh, to be free.

To be free to flee this tangle so set,

In this the Year of the Tiger

•

In mergence with the jungle bamboo

Afar away from the human zoo

I too must find the space — between the stripes

Like the Tiger in tropic balm

And then only

Will there be a calm — in my life

With peace and tranquility

In this the Year of the Tiger