For WakaFest150 – June 2019, celebration of the arrival of Japanese colonists at Wakamatsu Farm in 1869 – we had a “wishing tree” of bamboo for people to tie handwritten haiku, wishes, and thoughts for the day. Lacking that bamboo “tree” for Saturday’s “Gratitude” Open Farm Day, we had to improvise. I salvaged an oak branch from the slash pile and trimmed it to useful size. Here's a tanka I hung on the “wishing tree”:
Blessings on the Bough
We hang our wishes
and thanks on an oak bough trimmed
with last year’s empty
acorn cups, to fill with this
year’s blessings on wind
that sails our words far beyond
our pens, to grow like acorns.
~ Taylor Graham
Comments