nature – Page 6 – Hues of Hankinson

What am I?

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I am the face of hope,

In the fast fading light.

I am the distant dream

Driving forwards, when the day draws to a close,

The Star-bright shining in a suburban sultry night.

I am the laughter and the tears, the fear and guilt and pain,

Felt by all the mothers before me, the broken and the humbled, the joyous and loving,

I am the seed, the seedling, the roots, trunk and branches.

I bear the fruit. I am the womb of time.

I am me, fifty and finally come of age, woman.

Alison Jean Hankinson

It is open link night #190 at d’Verse and so we are encouraged to submit anything we choose, this was part of something I wrote a while back, and I guess it is what I need to believe at the moment. Returning and coming home has been nothing short of gruelling, nothing has been simple at all. It has been a little like hurling yourself from a small cliff into a ferocious and stormy ocean. I have to know deep down that it will come right and that the storm will pass. To do this I have to peel back the layers and remind myself of what I believe I am and then slowly start to pick myself up again.

The image is Ellen and the tree- the second version…and my children are very much a symbol of what I am.

Shifting sands

It has been a complex business. I had thought that coming home would have some kind of natural simplicity implicit in its processes. After all we weren’t trying to migrate to new pastures we were simply returning home after an extended spell overseas…11 years in NZ. I hadn’t expected it to be smooth, there were going to be hurdles and obstacles but I had expected it to have some kind of “this is your home” ring to it. I think the shifting sands of Morecambe best sums it up. Things were the same but somehow different. Faces were familiar but somehow not recognisable. In our absence, the shifting sands had changed the landscape.

In spite of this there was an absolute joy in recognising and reconnecting with familiar buildings and walking in the ghostly footsteps left from our previous wanderings and the feeling of warmth and belonging were rekindled by the crisp winter evening air, the ghostly morning mists and the memory of plants and flowers long forgotten in childhood.

Pussy willow tree
In February drizzle
Catkins caress spring

Today for Haibun Monday we were asked to reflect on the best things of life being for free and the catkins this Sunday did it for me. Long forgotten childhood treasure.

#d’Verse

On the edge.

October gold rolled down across the valley

Set fire to the moorland putrefied the summer roses

Cut the Lifeline.

I somnambulist walked the moors, saw the hues

Tasted the mists, breathed the rancid air- embraced it in my lungs

I welcomed the ritual of the seasons, I had no fear of death

Death is nothing to be afraid of my friend, see it not as the end, merely as the beginning.

Strange voices whispering through the boughs of an ash-dead spruce

Had October gold severed my lifeline.

Yea though I walk- first it was a voice whistled on the wind

And the valley of death come unto me

the voice strengthened until it became a choir of heavenly angels

Fear not thy destiny-lay down the misted shroud that marks the path to the golden sepulchre.

Stop the voices I cried in terror

Stop the voices! Stop the Voices

I am too young to die

I have no staff to guide me through this cavern of darkness.

I shall not succumb to my fate- Give back to me

The light of life.

The hands that first betrayed me-

The human hands that cut the cord at birth

The hands reached out to embrace me.

I clung to the naked flesh and was received.

The breeze softened for a moment

The hypnotic trance was broken

October passed swiftly over the valley

And my destiny was fulfilled.

Alison Jean Hankinson

Image from Wikimedia- Title: Moorland above Attadale With Lochcarron across the loch, left. By Toby Speight

http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/608

For d’Verse (d’Verse expressionism ) meeting the bar an attempt at expressionism? Bjorn stated “The simplest and most effective way to define expressionism is that you present the world in a totally subjective perspective. Expressionist artists sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality.”

So I have revisited something I wrote many years ago and attempted to do this.

The Nature of Leaving

Colossal mountain

And you know it is hard to climb

Sitting in the starlight,

Carboniferous days

And love turned to stone

When you left the valleys behind

And all that you can do

Is smile at the moon

And start the climb

Alison Jean Hankinson

This is for d’Verse open link night.

d’Verse open link

So today on Friday 13th of January our furniture is scheduled to leave Whangarei exactly 11 years to the day we arrived. We drove over the Brynderwyns on Friday 13 Jan 2006 and saw the vista of Whangarei and Mount Manaia for the very first time. I actually began to write this poem many years ago when it became clear to me that when leaving to pursue our dreams we inevitably leave behind places and people that we have grown to love and cherish.

Arohanui. Great love to all. XXXXXX

Childhood remembered

Childhood memory haibun for d’Verse- Haibun monday #28

Joanne and Alyson Abel had a goat. It lived on a messy piece of land adjoining their house which was probably actually their garden. Our garden was similar- a messy piece of land over a footbridge and formed part of a field. It never got mowed it wasn’t that kind of grass. I caught endless fish in a bucket using old stockings and coathangers and always put them back.

I lived and played outdoors in the summer and I don’t remember the rain, I borrowed other people’s distant sheds and turned them into “ganghuts” or dens in Doubledeckers style. I would track the rivers back to streams and back to source and wash stones in the summer sun. I ate gooseberries from the bushes near the Goyt (not it’s real name) which was a dammed swimming hole behind the school which all the children were forbidden to use- but we all did and no-one died, floating in inner tubes late into the day until we heard the din of the mothers cooking dinner and shouting for their off-spring.

Summer glow in heart

Friendships echo through the blue

Childhood re-kindled.

Images

Water School from the fields

Isle of Man Mill. Courtesy of Wikimedia- Photo by Robert Wade 2011. (My mum worked there as a seamstress)

Isle of Man Mill

Te Matau ā Pohe

It was a crisp clear winter’s morn

The town was still waking

The bridge was awash in early morning glory

Breathtaking beauty in a moment

Of luxury and peaceful contemplation

These moments are cherished

The moments where our existence

However minuscule is in perfect harmony

With the world around us.

Alison Jean Hankinson

Te Matau ā Pohe is the name of the bridge in Whangarei, it was opened on Saturday 27 July 2013. The bridge spans the Hatea River from Pohe Island to Port Road. Its name means the fish-hook of Pohe.

The symbolism of the fish-hook, it represents strength, good luck and safe travel across water.

This was written in response to d”Verse poetics. Link here:

d’Verse poetics abridged

I took the photos on the morning described, I had taken Ellen to work very early one winter’s morning and just had to pull over and take in the beauty of the moment.

#d’Verse

5 Ways to make it better.

Recognise accept and value the passage of time for all of us

5 Ways to make it better-The Julie Andrews Way

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Love what you have and all that is around you, the weather, the landscape -nature. Things that are somehow bigger and beyond human.
Brown paper packages tied up with strings. Try giving something as a gift to someone else you care about- a friend, a work colleague, a sibling, a partner- not for any special reason other than to make their life a little more special. It doesn’t have to be expensive- just be done with love and care like the Brown paper package.
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes. Always enjoy nice clothes on yourself and others. Free the frock..don’t leave it on the hanger because it was expensive or you bought it for a special occasion, let it out…give it it’s moment to be prettiful.
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes. Be mindful. Treasure every moment for what it is. Feel the wind and the rain. Hear the birdsong and the dawn chorus and recognise it as a moment in your own and others’ existence. Mark it, enjoy its flavour.
Silver white winters that melt into springs. Recognise accept and value the passage of time for all of us. Winter gives way to spring, swelters into summer, mellows into autumn, it has a pattern and a process that is mirrored throughout life and nature.

Lyrics from My Favourite Things- Sound of Music- Rodgers and Hammerstein.1959 Don’t knock it unless you have tried it…The hills are alive….

Image from Wikipedia-Mary Martin and Children in publicity image 1959

Interior– I was looking at inside my mind, and today it was all quite hopeful….XXX

The resilience of trees.

In response to the daily prompt Photo challenge.

This is one of a stand of Kauri trees at AH Reed memorial park Whangarei which we visited last week. Kauri trees grow for thousands of years. The size is not possible to fathom without human interaction. The largest living Kauri in NZ is Tane Mahuta and he majestically resides over towards Kai Iwi lakes in the Waipoua Forest and is about 1500-2000 years old.

They are the epitome of resilience, they have survived and bear witness to time beyond our time and understanding. When you stand beneath them you are made very aware of how short our existence and life is in real terms and how our plights and pleasures are relatively insignificant when put in true perspective next to such greatness. What would they say if they could talk.

Resilient