Seven for a Day: First East of Eden Reflections

This first set of new haikus is a collection inspired by a myriad of things I have been thinking about in reference to Steinbeck's East of Eden.  I have read over 500 of the 600 or so pages of it thus far.  As usual, when I get near the end of a book I love, I start to slow down.  Yet, I have crawled to the finish line with this book because it truly scares me.  It is an epic tragedy and it feels like everything is preparing to erupt.  There are glimpses of so many life experiences in this novel; many of which are seen to be as great failures.  Yet, within those failures are these glimpses of greatness and love, if only fleeting and filled with brevity.  They are there though.  So, this set of syllabic poetry is self-referential, but also meant to encompass how the book has affected me thus far.  Later, I intend to write some prose and new verse away from haiku upon completing the book.  I will be forever grateful to my friend, Helene for giving this novel to me and telling me to read it at such a delicate time in my life.  Thanks, Queenie!

Far away from west,

this place is no great graden.

Teeming with evil.

So much self-hatred,

from deep within it does stir,

A spitting cobra.

If only there were……

More trees, love and a kindness.

Give authority.

Let me count the ways,

I feel remorse and some loss.

An ape-like regress.

These digits of mine,

that have touched so many things,

Now seem to fade numb.

I have wiped the tears

from both of our red faces

Oh, how they return.

That great temptation.

The strains of what could/n’t be,

will long torment us.

East of Eden and Work to Come

"A child may ask, 'What is the world's story about?'  And a grown man or woman may wonder, 'What way will the world go?  How does it end and, while we're at it, what's the story about?'

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that had frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continual thought and wonder. Humans are caught-in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too-in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were wool of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard clean questions: Was it good or was it evil?  Have I done well-or ill"

Wow. There is a lot of work  based on that segment from this incredible book. Please do stay tuned, dear readers......,

A Dozen New Ones

Trees covered in white.
Beyond beautiful, pretty.
The drip before black.

Such a strong U-turn,
to feel and spin and rewind.
Reel (real) for a minute.

Countless sounds of snow,
from silent to violent,
based on how it falls.

Blue eyes, hair dyed black
and I think some black inside,
dying to see light.

Am I a monster?
Relationship Godzilla?
Only to rebuild.

It is bad out here.
The rent and such life constraints.
Yet, leaving is hard.

There is history,
torn down and reinvented,
to fall once again.

My fat cat on lap,
just licking my hand, salty,
cold and ocean dry.

Pigeons are rock stars,
for hours they sit asking
for one autograph.

Waterfalls and green.
But she would be left behind
as we look forward.

I raised a sweet cat,
lover of belly rubbing,
and some soft petting.

Some very long days
turn into very long nights
stuck in books and hearts.