poem: silence shimmering

hidden lightning glows behind the distant clouds

one raindrop trembles at the tip of a leaf

nightfall drifts in through the open window

dim light, faded pigments on old photographs

wandering in long-forgotten memories

I linked this poem to the readwritepoem blog, where there is a weekly poetry “prompt” inviting people to submit poems on a new theme each week. This week’s theme was word fishing, “fishing” out one word from each of five poems from a favorite poet, and using those words to inspire creation of a new poem. (You can read other poets’ submissions on the theme at the blog too.)

The poems I fished from were some of my favorite haiku by Basho:

temple bells echo into silence
the fragrant blossoms remain –
a perfect evening!

heat shimmering
one or two inches
above the dead grass

lightning
heron’s cry
stabs the darkness

the mountain rose trembles
falling petal by petal –
waterfall’s thunder

on a withered branch
a crow alights –
autumn nightfall

first snow
barely enough to bend
the leaves of faded daffodils

falling sick on a journey
my dream goes wandering
over a field of dried grass

OK, so that’s seven poems, but I couldn’t bear to part with any of them, and of course as haiku they’re so short :-). From them, I selected the words silence, shimmering, lightning, trembles, nightfall, faded, and wandering, to inspire me in creating a new poem.