Haiku - Class (8.31)

Where does one go to
find - learning, dreaming, knowing -
spaces of others?

An effortless dream
arises from the now spoilt
fruit of our labors.

See the stone in hand,
& tell me if it is sword,
wall or hearth you see?

Crow sees the stone wall
but does not see a stone wall.
See what Crow can see.

Strange seeds germinate
into foreign cultivars
enlivening place.

The children tear down
the rusted gate, and thrill at
more fragile fences.

A spark ignites flame
extinguished by a raindrop;
each filled with powers.

...

Returning to class has been strange. Somehow it feels more unusual than coming back to school a year ago. It is not that I am ill-prepared, I feel rather appropriately prepared, nor is it exactly anxiety or foreignness. I can't place it. I want to be working on my thesis and a rigorous schedule of class ought to align my time to actually get to work, so a return to class is good. That said, I am still out of my element in some manner.

I wrote these in Rom Coles's Power and Radical Transformation. With the form, I am still hesitant about past tense and whether that dangling "ed" counts as an additional syllable. More training in poetry might have been helpful, but I am of the opinion that generally it does not. We are expected to respond to the class discussion over a few pages and I think I will begin with these. I especially like "Crow sees..." and think that it reflects well some of the lessons to be learned from the article in a whimsical way. Again and again we revisited how to see transformational, radical work and how do we engage the opportunities of changing the "rules" of the game. Oddly, this is a subject of the Vincenzi story as well, or at least the understanding of the rules and the misunderstanding of such rules.

Anyway, I have to go reinstate my health insurance.