in filtered sunlight ~ haibun ~ magnetic poetry

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr

in filtered sunlight

I try to make sure that I have agreeable weather when I go kayaking, but sometimes the weather has other ideas.  Yesterday, the sky was completely overcast, but showers weren’t predicted to arrive until late afternoon, with a thunderstorm expected at 10:00pm, so I launched at 10:00am.

I was on the water for five minutes when it started sprinkling,  That lasted for just two minutes, and I continued on my way, planning to paddle almost two miles upstream before heading back.  Rolling thunder in the far distance started about fifteen minutes into the paddle.  Five minutes later, I got to my halfway point, which has a ten foot stone overhang six feet above the water, when it started to rain.  Hard.  I sat, protected, for twenty minutes, enjoying the sound of the rain on the water.

When it stopped raining, I continued on for three-quarters of a mile and was able to see a great blue heron, two green herons, and a deer.  Pleased with the way things turned out, I turned back for the return to my launch point.  That’s when the weather had it’s way, again, leaving me to paddle for twenty-five minutes in a light rain.  If it was trying to ruin my day, it failed.  It was a great day for a paddle.

This haibun is my response to
Open Link Night #247 at dVerse.

If you want to try magnetic poetry, you can do it online, here.

26 thoughts on “in filtered sunlight ~ haibun ~ magnetic poetry”

  2. Waiting out the rain and enjoying the peace of the overhang seems like the ultimate relaxation. One of my favorite authors, Tom Robbins, wrote in his book, “Another Roadside Attraction”: “As was my custom in such elements I hunkered against the rain, drew my head into my collar, turned my eyes to the street, tensed my footsteps and proceeded in misery. But my hosts, I soon noticed, reacted in quite another way. They strolled calmly and smoothly, their bodies perfectly relaxed. They did not hunch away from the rain but rather glided through it. They directed their faces to it and did not flinch as it drummed their cheeks. They almost reveled in it. Somehow, I found this significant. The Zillers accepted the rain. They were not at odds with it, they did not deny it or combat it; they accepted it and went with it in harmony and ease. I tried it myself. […] I got no wetter than I would have otherwise, and if I did not actually enjoy the wetting, at least I was free of my tension.”

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  13. LOVE this! Weather does indeed try to have “its way” with us. Whenever we travel, we take rain “gear” as in jacket, hat, pants and shoes….all waterproof. Many a times we have been so attired, enjoying a hike in a very wet nature — which has its own beauty — and passed by people miserable in cold wet clammy jeans and soaked shoes. I think that’s a Scout motto? Always be prepared! 😉

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