Journey Together
A new beginning,
with love found in Chicago,
led me to travel
halfway across the country
to be by your side.
Vows made beneath a great light
beside blue waters,
witnessed by those we hold dear,
sealed the union of our hearts.
lovers united
beneath tall beacon of hope
witnessed by loved ones
formation of endless bond
two hearts beating now as one
By not staying with a theme of summer or winter, I’m afraid I’ve strayed from Kristjaan’s prompt at Carpe Diem Weekend-Meditation #21 Out Of The Box #3 Chōka and Sedōka (Winter/Summer), but this is where my mind went when I started writing – all key events occurring during summer.
This my first attempt at writing chōka, a Japanese long poem written primarily from the 6th to the 14th century. Chōka have alternating lines of 5 and 7 syllables and an indefinite length (from 7 to 149 lines), ending with an added 7 syllable line. So, 5-7-5-7-5-7-…7, and a length allowing greater themes.
Chōka often were followed by one or more short poems called hanka, or “envoys,” summarizing, supplementing, or elaborating on, the contents of the main poem. Sometimes, a tanka would serve as an envoy, and that is what I have written here.
Man’yōshū (“Collection of a Myriad Leaves”) is the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry (from some time after AD 759) and contains 4,536 waka (classical Japanese poetry). 265 of those are chōka (long poems). The 1940/1965 edition of The Man’yōshū: One Thousand Poems (a translation) is available for download as a PDF from Internet Archive and is some pretty interesting reading.
rivrvlogr 
A beautiful poem, Ken, and lovely tribute to your love.
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Thank you, Robbie.
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Love is a treasure greater than gold or frankincense and myrrh . It still took me a while to figure out how to spell those words right, however. Somewhat appropriate, metaphorically speaking, I guess.
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Thank you, Daniel.
Yes, a journey with rewards.
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Another wonderful expression of love. And thanks for the choka information and link. (K)
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Thank you, Kerfe.
I actually wrote one about starlings and a hawk, and their conflict in flight, but in reading some of those classics I saw they were about personal experience or personal impressions of nature, so I started over.
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Beautiful poem of love, Ken.
I didn’t know of this form, so thank you for that information, too. 🙂
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Thank you, Merril. I plan to read more of the book. The translations being from an earlier time make use of romantic language (oft, O, go forth, “Though I should die,” etc), so I need to give more consideration to how I would write this – in that manner or in my own style. Most likely the latter.
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Choka also “new” to me … your pairing here works well (both the poetics and apparently the human pairing!)
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Thanks, Jazz. Yes, our pairing works quite well.
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The ‘Manyoshu’ is a wonderful compilation of poems. I have read it. What a wonderful choka you share here with us Ken. No problem that you only did summer … CDHK is only a source of inspiration.
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Thank you, Kristjaan.
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‘sealed with the union of our hearts’ – how lovely, Ken!
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Thank you. 🙂
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What a sweet love poem! Thank you for the information on the form, as well!
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🙂 Thank you!
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