sorrow

Hidden Gift ~ sijo

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 20 Comments

Hidden Gift

Recent years remind me
       of the sorrow December can hold.

But with the loss experienced
       comes a most welcome gift.

Memories held in fondness
       temper the sorrow that brings them forth.

This is my response to Ronovan Writes Sijo Wednesday Challenge #41: Gift.

Sijo (a Korean verse form related to haiku and tanka)
~ three lines of 14-16 syllables each
~ a total of 44-46 syllables
~ a pause near the middle of each line
~ first half of the line contains six to nine syllables
~ the second half should contain no fewer than five
Originally intended as songs, sijo can treat romantic, metaphysical, or spiritual themes. Whatever the subject, the first line introduces an idea or story, the second supplies a “turn,” and the third provides closure.
Modern Sijo are sometimes printed in six lines.
Read more here: Wikipedia

to honor another, lost ~ gogyohka & senryū

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 14 Comments

 

roads to travel
to honor another, lost
December’s dark days
once again conspire
to deliver sorrow

I’ll be traveling this week, so I’ll be absent from WordPress, but I should be home by Friday. I’m leaving now, Monday morning, to drive to Buffalo to attend the funeral of the mother of a dear friend I have known since childhood.

batter dropped in oil
much more than simple donut
brings sweet memories

 

If Only

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 16 Comments

If Only

No, I will not grieve
for loved ones lost.
Sorrow that follows
their passing will bow
to celebration for life
and moments shared.
So I tell myself, yet
grief refuses to yield,
despite the celebration.

This my response to No! Vember, the prompt form Sarah at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.

Out of Reach

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 36 Comments

Out of Reach

Words come,
go, whether I stop
to think about the pain
or drive it from my mind.
Never really gone,
it rises when I fall victim
to regret, consider wasted
moments when I long
for those out of reach,
no longer here. I reach
for words they will never hear,
never sure if the words
will reach me.

This poem is my response to Poetics: From a place of pain, the prompt from Ingrid at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is “to revisit a time in your life when you have felt pain (emotional or physical, acute or chronic) and come out on the other side stronger.” I don’t think I’ve ever survived such a moment in a way that made me any stronger. Instead, I consider myself just as vulnerable.

Once Broken, Healed

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 41 Comments

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.
                                                  Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929)

Once Broken, Healed

What is loss, but an empty space?

And what is an empty space,
but that which waits to be filled?

The last generation that was,
at the time of your passing,
was not the last generation.

That which follows holds a place
of its own that encompasses
that which once was, always will be,
you, knowing all that you were
and all that you held.

 

This poem is another response to dVerse Poetics – One True Sentence, the prompt from Lisa at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use one of the sentences provided, quotes from the works of Ernest Hemingway to write a poem.
When my father died in 1993 he had eight grandchildren, aged from one to twenty-two. There are now fourteen great-grandchildren (including two adoptions). All of them know, or will know, him.

Shared with Open Link Night #295 – Midsummer Live at dVerse Poets Pub.

message of hatred ~ sedoka

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 14 Comments

message of hatred
for unsuspecting victims
dispensed by madmen with guns

as a nation grieves
bodies continue to fall
in world where no place is safe

 

This sedoka is my response to
Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #96 Little Ones … Sedoka

A Sedoka is an unrhymed poem composed of two katauta. A katauta is able to stand alone, with three lines and a syllable pattern of 5-7-7. A Sedoka therefore has the syllable count: 5-7-7, 5-7-7.  Each katauta must be able to be read independently, but also create a cohesive singular work in the Sedoka.

Mass shootings, fueled by nationalism, bigotry and hatred continue at an accelerated pace in the United States, a place where such events are becoming the new norm in news cycles.

a fitting farewell ~ haiku

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 11 Comments

 

a fitting farewell
her final post a whisper
keeper of secrets

Jennifer / jennifer kiley / jk (Marge) was The Secret Keeper. My interaction with The Secret Keeper was limited to her weekly writing challenge and her haiku review challenge, but through her blog I came to understand some of the challenges she faced in life.

Since you’re only seeing one side of a person through their blog, I recognize that connecting with someone in that way is a limited experience, but it’s still troubling to lose someone you may never have met. Through The Secret Keeper’s blog, her partner, Shawn MacKenzie, informed us of Marge’s last days of failing health (here) and of her final passing (here).

A regular feature for The Secret Keeper was quotes from The Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust, some of which are common to many of us as inner secrets. One of the earliest was:

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy;
they are the charming gardeners
who make our souls blossom” – Marcel Proust

And her last was:

“Pleasures are like photographs: in the presence of the person we love, we take only negatives, which we develop later, at home, when we have at our disposal once more our inner darkroom, the door of which it is strictly forbidden to open while others are present.” – Marcel Proust

This link will take you to her collection of Weekly Writing Prompts.

Here are her prompts for her Haiku Review Challenge.

Departure

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr / 21 Comments

Departure

I will drive, and the memories will come,
melding with the miles, feeling the same.

Familiar.
Worn.

But the miles now outpace
the memories, the trips

more often each passing year,
my own years soon passing.

Will I be someone’s miles,
someone’s memories?

Traveling for what seems like the wrong reason, but which is, of course, the right reason.