Ligo Haibun Challenge based on Jim Croce songs "Photographs and Memories""New York's Not My Home"
I sit in the empty house, sifting through old photographs, wondering if and when these times existed. Tattered memorabilia, faded roses now brittle like my memories. Jim Croce keeps me company in my misery. The people in these photos, strangers to my heart. I cannot tell for sure if someone hasn’t switched them out ...can’t remember such happy times. They look vaguely familiar, like old black and whites of distant relatives. False memories you think you might remember because you’ve heard the stories time and again. Photographs and Memories plays and the verse “Morning walks and bedroom talks are how I loved you then” reminds me of how we use to read to each other, take long walks and talk. Seems like a lifetime ago; sometime before we said, “I do,” before Jekyll turned to Hyde.
I organize the photos pausing as the next album drops and Jim sings more to my pain. Tears spill and drop on the photo of you smiling. The album so worn it sticks and repeats after “I gotta get out of here, I’m so alone”. --so alone, so alone, so alone... I pack up the memories, dust myself off, go for a walk, change my perspective. At last I close up.the record player, pop in a tape and blast Ricky Lee Jones as I dance through my chores preparing for my children to return. Now there is joy, I never will regret.
The great bear
roams the night sky - never setting
or finding rest
Their are many stories about the great bear, but one fact is that this constellation is always in view whether high or low in the sky. I love the greek myth where Callisto, a virgin huntress falls in love with Zeus, bares his son Arcas, and is turned to a bear by Zeus’ jealous wife Hera. Later, Callisto sees her son and raises her arms to embrace him. Fearing for his life Arcas raises his bow to kill her. Zeus saves her by turning her son into a small bear. He supposedly grabbed them by the tail and hurtled them into the heavens for their protection. Hera for her own triumph set them in the celestial hemisphere where they would wander never setting below the horizon. Other myths link the bear to King Arthur, some say she is Artemis herself. In China, the seven stars of the big dipper that form the bears back is the celestial home of the Lord on High. The star Sirius is the heavenly wolf that guards the palace.
heaven’s watchman
Sirius - guards the bridge
of the gatherer
The Great Bear roams
the celestial heavens
seeking hibernation
jealous gods
light the night sky
with fire and imagination
Wickedly cold snowy day. You pose next to your first snowman in your favorite pink hat. My bare ears and fingers numb with cold. We retreat from the weather with steaming mugs of hot cocoa.
