Happy New Year 2022 - Water Tiger Year with Haiku Poets

 Lovely haiga - photos or art with haikus - sent in by members of Southern California Haiku Study Group were presented on Zoom on Sunday, January 2,2022 in a presentation hosted by Debbie P Kolodji.  It was a delight and a meeting of friends, some from Southern California, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego County, others from Northern California and the East Coast.  Debbie brought us all together, created a delightful PowerPoint presentation of haiga riches, and led us through the reading. At the end, she collected ideas for more meetings in person...I'm inviting poets to Big Tujunga Wash in May and June for a walk amongst the towering white Yucca Whipplei flowers, a delight for us tiny Liliputs in the valley of giants... 

So much good poetry, but I only have photos of my own... I looked up what kind of Chinese Year are we going to have and saw Black Water Tiger - so I looked for a stripy photo to match, and found one from Redondo Beach, taken during the Christmas walk with kids and grandkids, some of them, anyway....

Then, I thought I should celebrate the fruitfulness and abundance of the coming year, so our focus is positive and full of trust in the great future we are expecting and will see happening.  I just ate my very last pomegranate I saved for the new year. I kept it on the tree until January 1, and took the photo in mid-December when the gold leaves were still on the tree... 

The pomegranate was rich, almost amaranth in shade, dark burgundy wine hue, or .... pomegranate, bursting with tart sweetness on my tongue.... I wrote many pomegranate poems, the most recent one will be published in California Quarterly 48 no. 1, so here's The Aril from the past:

The Aril

“Aril” is the word for me. 

Not “arid” – as in the desert of wasted years, hours.

Not “arduous” – as in working so hard every day

to make ends meet. These ends, they never meet, anyway.

Just aril. As in my garden at noon. As in ruby-bright 

pomegranate shining in full sunlight. A jewel bowl of arils 

I pick from exploded fruit to freeze for winter. A handful 

of overripe arils that taste rejuvenating, like fine wine.

Tartly-sweet juice stains my fingers burgundy-red – 

or should I say, aril-red?

Oh, the delight of untold riches!

You watch me blissfully chew the seeds

and say in disbelief: “You eat them whole? Really?

When I was a boy, my brother told me that

trees would grow out of my ears if I swallowed 

pomegranate seeds – huge trees would grow 

and grow and grow and grow…”

We laugh at the vision of these arid, forgotten years.

It was an arduous journey that took us through 

the wilderness to this vivid moment of sharing 

this magic, life-giving nectar of arils, 

ruby-red arils.

(c) Maja Trochimczyk, 2021

Last week, as I was driving through our astounding mountains with Ian, my youngest son visiting from Texas, I wrote a poem about what surprised me the most - the river of gold leaves, ash, cottonwood, poplar - at the bottom of the canyon, meandering between steep hillsides - walls of cracking rocks, charcoal-dark from the rain, and sparse dried out bushes... We were driving too fast to take any photos, I'd have to climb half way up the slopes to catch a good view, anyway... 

Here's a photo with Ian from the "Black Water Tiger" beach portrayed above.

Here's my older son's family with my youngest granddaughter, one of them, Aurelia

And here's my second youngest granddaughter, Juniper with her parents, her uncle and grandma.

Andherewe are in Costa Mesa Oso Park, with brand new Snoopy...  

This morning, a haiku summarizing that experience, the contrast of lovely, flowing gold and charcoal crumbling into nothingness appeared out of nowhere. Then, I went for a walk to find some gold leaves -  there were quite a few, from liquid amber, mulberry, poplar, cottonwood, ash, and some other trees that I do not know the names of... Here's the end result - extra leaves as  the background. I actually found all hues of yellow, orange and red, or should I say Napes, Chrome and Imperial Yellows, Gold, Gamboge, Saffron, Amber, Minium, and Ginger, Vermilion, Scarlet, Hematite, Dragon's blood, all the way to Tyrian purple, Archil, russet, Sepia, and Umber... I know the names of these colors now, because I got a new book for Christmas, The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair. So vivid, so brilliant!

May your year of Water Tiger be vivid and brilliant -

full of joy, serenity, gratitude and creativity. 

Happy New Year 2022 to everyone!