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Seven is the number of wholeness and completion. This week we complete seven whole years living on this little farm. I've filled pages at this blog with farm joys since our second winter here. Today I'm planting wee memory haiku in the soil, like crocus bulbs. I was going to plant seven, but an eighth nudged its way in. Let's say the eighth is for the year ahead.
1shopping for a country house
here’s the driveway, stop!
tree embrace. seduced.
you’re ours, they whisper
2winter modesty
nothing but lace above
white sheet below
bare arms, chilly
3Pleiades orgy
cold night, hot tub
lucky man
one woman, and her seven sisters
4laundry joy
sun and wind call:
to Lake Michigan!
she replies, I'm coming!
as she hoists her sails
5how do you do?
let me introduce myself
come outside
I'm nature
6pendulous
heavily they fall
bounce in the grass
soften
7farm wedding
August rain
waters plum vows
100 people become one
waters plum vows
100 people become one
8pharoah’s dichotemy
seven years
abundant leanness, or lean abundance
wet sky, dry sky
does it matter?
69 comments:
What a delightful delicate way to mark this anniversary. Some of the haikus are very evocative, especially when paired with the images ... the cloudy sky, the hoisted sail sheets, the water plum vows (long one of my favorite images from your blog). The very first one opens the path and gate of the farm for the rest, such a perfect marriage of words and images and stories, told untold, revealed and concealed.
Ruth...
This is absolutely incredible. Have I said that a thousand times? It's a thousand times incredible.
and you make me long for this too... it's so incredibly expensive around here. and my husband worries about the tied to the land factor.
but then, to take this in. my soul stirs.
Congratulations on the seventh anniversary of your farm life, Ruth. What a wonderful life you and Don have made for yourselves and your family there. Who knows? One of these days, you may find me driving down your driveway to see if this was all as real as it seemed when I read your post a moment ago. I hope you have a special farm anniversary dinner planned for tonight.
Oh, that winter shot!! Beautiful....
I like this bit:
"nothing but lace above
white sheet below"
and I've always loved that photo of the chook in the window - makes me smile every time.
Obviously, this is your beloved Tara.
Many happy returns of the day. Or should I say, many more multiples of seven.
I am very glad your haiku are not exclusively the traditional kind. I have been told off for not following the strict rules of 5-7-5. Western languages do not lend themselves to such strict measure. I shall cite you as my authority, being a 'proper' college lecturer.
Your photographs, particularly the homely sort, are beautiful. They say so much more than the tweaked,
'artistic' ones.
Wonderful haiku and photos. The photo of the white rooster by the old shed/barn is fabulous.
Congratulations Ruth. ! i thought it was longer. For me your farm is a studio, It gives me joy, even thought i will not see it. i see it through your eyes. l'atelier is ecstasy. Congratulations to you Don Lesley Brian Peter and Bishop
oh Ruth, i forgot, let me write it here connected with your previous post.
i used to write short stories, never made any attempt to publish them. Hand written. they circulated among friends. One journalist friend Paneer, translated two of my stories in Tamil and pubished them in a Tamil Magazine in his name. He was so sure that i will never get to know of it because i don't read Tamil magazines. but the very next day Ramesh came to my house and informed me. i was furious ! Had no telephone those days and i waited for Panneer to come home. He came and i yelled at him. You know what he said ?
your stories were gathering dust here, be thankful that your stories saw the light of the day because of me. These were his exact words
i was shocked. our friendship continued, took pictures of his wedding and his wife is sweet to me. They are Mala's neighbours now.
i stopped writing. i wanted a typewriter. but i could not afford one. 20 years later came a computer, then internet, then came blogs. So plagiarizing is not a big sin in India.
Oh, I really liked this.
Pleiades orgy and The Farm Wedding had me equally captivated and nearly to tears (especially the Farm Wedding).
Ruth, your images and words slay me. :)
Congrats on your lucky number sevens.
Happy Anniversary, Ruth! May you have many, many more years of blessings like these. You had me hooked with the first haiku. "You're ours" is so true! I LOVE that it could be the couple saying "you're ours" to the farm. Or it could be the trees and land saying "you're ours" to the couple. Awesome.
The haiku are lovely, and so are the pictures. You, George and Lorenzo put me to shame with pictures:) But I love looking. It's a beautiful window into your world.
Sounds like it's been a good seven years on the Michigan farm and those stars sound look and feel pretty bright shining into the eighth
elVIichigan A Center of Great Lakes
Pleiades Seven Sisters that are
Celestial Stars
I always have this thought: It takes courage to live on a farm. What a wonderful achievement! It must have taken not only courage, but a lot of love and strength to build up a home that requires so much work! But in return, your experience have inspired poetry and photography... just love them all! And that picture of the stars/constellations, did you take that? What a magnificent view!
Lorenzo, thank you for celebrating this anniversary along with us. It is so hard to limit myself to a few photos, a few words, and left so much unsaid. It's something I am learning to exercise, though, thanks in big part to your Miguel Hernández What is a poem? post.
Deb, your love and enthusiasm touches me so very much. I am happy you can feel the magnitude of our connection with this place, even in these tiny snapshots. I hope for you that you can get that sense of connection where you are, even if you can't have a place of your own like this (though "ownership" is not something I think of in relation to this property; we don't "own" it in any true sense), whether in local farms and countryside, or something.
Dear George, thank you for sharing this special occasion with us. It has been special for us to show the wonders of this property to our friends through our blogs over the years. Don and I would just LOVE to hear you pull in the drive for a good long visit. We'll take you for a walk by the pond and into the meadow, through the barn and into the woods.
Alas, dinner last night was a quick sub sandwich provided at an event I had for work. But maybe Don and I will get some sushi tonight, and toast to this special occasion. Thanks, so much, my friend.
Esther, thank you, yes the meadow was gorgeous that day, the light extraordinary. It's so good to see you after a long while, and see your moon, just the same as ours, over a different continent.
Letty, thank you, seeing the meadow in winter as a woman in bed made me happy, and it makes me happier that you like it too.
Those two chooks are something, and I just feel grateful I had the camera in hand when they had their silent stare.
Margaret, indeed it is. It's a comfort too, to know we could live off it if we had to. Thank you.
has it really only been seven years?!
I've always thought, if you can fall in love with a place in the bland, bareness of a naked winter, then it is a true love.
Love to come and visit here. Wonderful place. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the chicken photo. That would be awesome to paint!!!!! :) Carla
WOW! This piece is terrific! Creative..powerful..meaningful. WOW!!!
Wishing you continued joy in your beautiful farm
photos stunning
poems very touching indeed
Heart-warming stuff
Hello Ruth,
I'm visiting you for the first time. Your Haiku pared with the photos are marvelous - my favorite is "winter modesty." Seven appears to be your lucky number - have another good year on your farm.
Wonderful haiku, and it's so much more meaningful when you've walked those trails, seen it all directly. You are so blessed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p08NBZn4u8
PS I actually meant "paired" but now that I think of it, "pared" works, too! I also wanted to tell you that I also have the Mark Strand poem on my sidebar - it's one of my favorites.
...7 knew you could not resist.. you 8 it up...
I give this a 10 out of 10.
This was a wondrous seven year journey - thanks for sharing. The 8th haiku reminds me of the extra birthday candle on a cake - the one to grow on :)
This was lovely.
What a joyful celebration of a cycle. Lovely images.
I truly enjoyed these! The Pleiades Orgy and Laundry Joy are my two TOP favorite, although I loved them all!
Happy seven years! (that's a cycle) And your trees are right: you belong to them, not the other way round--as you know.Love especially the laundry and the plum/hay wedding (oh, the joy of that day, still!). Many many more happy years reaping inspiration from your farm!
Friko, so I'm not only the authority of my own life . . I'm an authority of haiku! Woohoo! :)
You know who inspired me for these? Jack Kerouac. I found a youtube of him reciting his own haiku, and they were so fun and free, that I recognized just what you say, that in these days, in this language, the spirit of haiku does not need to be in strict beat and measure.
I'm glad you like the photos for being homely. I realized after you said that that I chose them for just that, so thanks for noticing.
Thank you, Kenju, the chicken window photo is one of our favorites too, lucky me I had my camera handy.
Thank you so much for your anniversary greetings, rauf. You have been here almost from the beginning of the farm in our history, and almost from the very start of this blog. Wow. It was so hard picking photos for this post, I had to leave so many things out.
WOW about the short stories, rauf!! Wow, that you wrote them, though I am not surprised. With your imagination, experience and humor, they must have been highly entertaining. And wow that Paneer took them without any compunction! Wow that you stayed friends.
Now you tell us stories with pictures and blog posts. I have learned a great deal about India, you, and about life from your writing and photo essays. But it really is a shame that your short story career did not materialize (I know I should type materialise for you, but there goes that red line).
Ellen, thank you, I'm glad.
Terresa, I'm delighted to slay you. :)
I still find it profoundly touching that so many of us feel as we do about that Farm Wedding, more than a year later now ...
Fragrant Liar, thanks for joining the seven year celebration.
Hello, Julie. My celebration swells with pride at your visit. You noticed that double meaning in "you're ours" ! Thank you for that.
As for pictures, my dear, you paint the most miraculous images with words, rendering photographs utterly unnecessary.
Thanks so much for your kind visit.
Dusti, maybe we'll find an eighth sister this year. (Well, there's always me.)
How'd you do that? lVlichigan . . . cool! Your play with words, letters, and how they look on the page is WAY fun. Play on, McDuff.
And as for your haiku, there is something magnificent picturing lVlichigan, at the center of the lakes, under the stars, just there, like that.
Thank you.
Arti, the house needed no work, really, so that part has been easy. However Don has done some beautiful things in the house, along with Peter, mostly to restore an old farmhouse feel, with bare floors and pine trims. We hope to keep going in that direction.
As for the farm work, it's 95% Don. It is his hobby and joy. We have no more chickens now, and just a few turkeys who will be gone in a couple of weeks onto someone's Thanksgiving platters (one for ours). I do try to find ways to fill the table with the produce from his big garden, and that is a joy for me.
I found the Pleiades image at the site I linked at the bottom of the post.
Thank you for sharing our celebration today, Arti. I hope you have a great weekend.
Yes, Violetski, seven. And this is the longest we've been in any one house.
Interesting that you would say that about true love if you fall in love with a house in the blandness of winter, because I had written something about that in this post before deleting it. I loved becoming acquainted with this place in the stark landscape of November, looking at it through the window. I might have been overwhelmed being introduced in summer, as it was when we first saw it.
Hi, Jill! I'm so glad you feel the wonder of this place through your computer monitor. Isn't that something?
The chicken photo has been painted by my blog friend Laura. She did a beautiful water color of it. For a while I had several art pieces on my sidebar that blog friends had done of our chickens, and even a vase of flowers. How great to be an inspiration to an artist! It goes both ways, doesn't it.
Marcie! Thank you so much for your enthusiastic praise. :)
Dear Elizabeth, I am glad you stopped by to share the warmth of this special place, which has taken care of us so well these seven years. We are not really the caretakers of her, she is the caretaker of us.
Hello and welcome, Barb! You bring a very pleasant poetic breeze with you from LIVE and LEARN, such a beautiful place you have in that blog. Your photos are just spectaculous. And yes, seeing the same Strand poem there connects us.
And the connection with paired and pared is lovely too. And how about peared? :)
Thank you, Loring, your and Carol's footfalls still echo in the meadow, and the turkeys are still gobbling about you . . . Where is that man who sounded so like a turkey?? ... :)
How extraordinary that Sevens is still selling, and sold out! after Dave's passing nearly a decade ago.
How kind, clever Gwen. :)
Pauline, thank you for visiting the farm for this celebration. I hadn't heard of the extra birthday candle for the year to come, I like it!
Thanks so much, Amy.
Lakeviewer, thank you. I wonder what the next seven will bring.
Pat, truly . . I'm glad! :)
DS, thank you for your acknowledgements and wishes for more abundance! I am so delighted I get to share it with you.
These are great, but the Pleiades hot tub is sheer genius!
What a wonderful way to celebrate your anniversary of home...I feel like I traveled the 7 years with you as I read the verses...of course I loved your images of "hoisting the sail"....and isn't that an interesting word to say...hoist!
May you have reason and years to write many more verses!
xo
Happy anniversary! Wishing you multiplied joy for many sevens more.
Good morning Ruth on this raining day here in the Netherlands, I will take coffee as usual, no sugar, a little cream.
I am one of the few lucky people that visited your delightful farm and met you and Don.
Your place is a heaven of Nature, pure joy, it breathes peace and pure air.
Of course you have your problems, who hasn't, we are human.
But than, what is more healing than have a walk outside, breath in and breath out.
There will always be another morning, another day with new chances.
My dear sister, a wonderful series of pictures again, showing the delight.
Please take some pictures in spring when the memory haiku bloom.
Thanks, Montag. It must be because I'm longing for the hot tub to be fixed so badly, the longing went into the haiku. :)
Oliag, so you heard that, over there by the sea, did you? Good, I meant that you should.
You have traveled many of the 7 with me, right here, and may you travel with me many more, and I with you.
love
J.G., thank you so very much.
My dear Astrid, what a happy surprise to wake up to your virtual visit to the farm. I can see you sitting there on the porch, as we chat. Nature does nurture us here, no matter what is happening in the world or in our hearts.
I look forward to you coming to Farm Day, next year maybe.
I wonder what colors the spring haiku will be?
Truth be told, Ruth, we are thinking of July 4th at the cottage this next year (do you think they're ready to meet Astrid?)...and hoping to spend time with you and Don on the farm before or after? It would mean flying into Detroit and probably missing Atlanta altogether. I realize I've not mentioned this to you yet...so it's time to let you know what we're thinking!
That would be Year #8! Another Haiku.
Your creative abilities are limitless, it seems! I loved the very first one. It is so easy to fall in love with a place. And I love the picture of Don peeking out of the barn at the rain.
Oh, Ruth, this is so very perfect. In reading each haiku, I see bits of the life I have discovered in my time visiting your blogs. The joy, the quiet beauty, the peace, the happiness of everyday things. Nothing could say more than these brief little poems -- so full of beauty and meaning.
It's seven years for me here as well.
The whole seven year itch thing keeps springing into my mind though...
I love everything about this post. You've lived here longest since I've been alive.
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