 |
| Ruins of a banquet hall, Sudeley Castle, UK |
June's challenge was to write a poem capturing the idea of wabi-sabi, the Japanese concept of impermanence and imperfection. Here's a quote that Tricia shared from the book, Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence by Andrew Juniper:
Wabi-sabi is an aesthetic that finds beauty in things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. Taken from the Japanese words wabi, which translates to less is more, and sabi, which means attentive melancholy, wabi-sabi refers to an awareness of the transient nature of earthly things and a corresponding pleasure in the things that bear the mark of this impermanence.
Now, I've written about wabi-sabi before, and seemed to remember it being about celebrating "the crack in everything." And, on our recent trip to Wales and England, I reveled in taking photos of glorious ruins of castles and abbeys. (I do love a good ruin.) But this time, the phrase that haunted me from that quote was "attentive melancholy."
I'm not by nature a pessimistic person--not that I can't be negative or grumpy at times, but melancholy implies a sort of marination in sadness that I'm not capable of sustaining. But what was I missing by not looking with that sort of attention--the kind of attention that doesn't try to change things for the better, but acknowledges what is unfinished, and imperfect, and sees the beauty in that?
I'm so curious to see what my poetry sisters came up with in answer to that question. As for me, my only idea came from looking at my hands and thinking that I'm as spotted now as an old leaf.
This leaf
this leaf will dry
the color seep away
the veins break
this leaf will fall
lose its light
unmoor from the tree
the road will go away
the fence, the barn, too
the house where I met him
this leaf will crackle
under muddy boots
this spotted hand let go
-----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved)
Explore my poetry sisters' posts here:
Poetry Friday is hosted by our own Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.
