Extract from March haiku / tanka
Jorie Graham wrote ‘the past is senseless.’ Yet I strive to make sense of the present by understanding the past. During Lent this year, we stayed in an old Provençal house in Provence Verte. There was no internet connection. My writing task during these five weeks was to transcribe notes of conversations I had had with my mother, Valerie June Dennis (05 March 1922 – 09 February 2014) not long before her death. On every page, I would hesitate and stumble over a name or historical event that needed to be checked for accuracy. Without access to online records and archives, not to mention Wikipedia, this proved an impossibility. There were, however, compensations, as we watched with undivided attention the advent of signs of spring. These haiku break the rules of classical haiku: they are often personal; they don’t always contain an obvious ‘Aha!’ moment; but they are usually acutely aware of the seasons and of time passing.
02 March 2015
for Lent we eschew
internet hot baths Today
serious news : why?
. . . also gardening
watching daffodils push through:
restless like Denny
03 March 2015
common black redstart’s
translucent ochre plumage
fans open again
he flies fans alights
on pollarded branch then flits –
solitary show-off –
to pelouse anglaise to catch
huge Provençal bug
04 March 2015
lent: no internet
no data no news no info
no real improvement
the word I write most —
CHECK: CHECK DATES CHECK FACTS CHECK NAMES —
the past slips my grasp
Thursday, 05 March 2015
ninety-three today
happy birthday to you, June!
ash heap in sand dune
her favourite tune
non, je ne regrette rien —
of course it’s not true
from the age of five
she always slipped the first stitch
at start of each row:
I chose not to copy her —
I use her needles today
my hair style’s not mine
the shape of my face has morphed:
I am my mother!
CHECK SPELLING — again
June’s spelling was always fine
much better than mine!
Rose is three months old
I knit her next year’s sweater
& watch black redstart —
his rosy-tailed prolepsis
of evening’s salmon skies
clear night sky — full moon . . .
un ciel clair —une pleine lune
cinq heures — la boulangerie
allume le rond-point
I’ve passed moon-lit night
French monologue in my head
illuming nothing
06 March 2015
Phildar aiguillles circulaires
longeur 100cm diameter 3 ¼ −
I knit onto these —
bought these in forties Paris?
to reknit what wool?
ECITO après la guerre
stitched an unravelled Europe
07 March 2015
chic insouciance
of provençal printemps, &
of the ginger cat,
lolling atop red-tiled wall
waiting for lone, black redstart . . .
Helen May Williams is completing an edition of memoirs by her late mother. Her poetry has been published in a number of small press publications including Hearing Voices, Horizon, Raw Edge, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Three Drops from a Cauldron and Bluebeard’s Wives, Heaventree Press 2007. Blog: helenmaywilliams.wordpress.com