There will only be two challenges for February. A multiple range of topics is given in this challenge. home, origin, history, memories of past times, our lifestyle, our lives now, our lives in the future. Work in any Japanese genre poetry is acceptable.
The Stocking
ReplyDeleteon the tree
old family ornaments
each memory
Our granddaughter hangs up her stocking. It contains a bag of grain that she thinks reindeers probably eat. I watch as her parents fuss around this elaborate and beautiful lie.
Then to bed for all of us.
quiet midnight
the scent of pine sap
through the house
They manage to sleep till six-thirty, a miracle any day for this two-year-old. We wake to, ‘This isn’t grain!’ in the child’s singsong voice and to the sound of paper ripping. The child unpacks the stocking one foam sticker at a time, unpeeling each and sticking them to someone or something. Then she finds a long grey hair and I can guess to whom that belongs. ‘Oh look,’ says her mother, ‘Santa hair!’
sparkling
the tinselled tree
and the child’s eyes
Later my daughter whispers that she feels ambivalent about telling the untruths. I say, ‘What you are actually spinning is myth.’ and I ask how she feels about her childhood. She says she wouldn’t have swapped it. So we take more photographs of the most photographed child in the world, photographs that will show a slightly crazy, manic delight on her face.
little girl
ReplyDeletewith fairy-light eyes
christmas Tree
lovely lovely
ReplyDelete