Literally or figuratively, what clutter? — declutter all clutter: jumbled thinking rumpled spaces discord, disorder figuratively, literally for what’s trivial and what’s important are what you extract of your surroundings if something unscrambles knots within you fixes your mood, tidies perspective if it sends your heart aflutter curls up your lips, delights your senses amplifies and gladdens moments that is not clutter…

Basking on the memory of that first snowfall with photos — “Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder–no matter how old you became and how much you’d seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.” ~ Candace Bushnell Happy 2023 to readers of For Awe and all my supporters. May we…

Sending you a picture postcard from my shore on the globe — bathed in evensong listen to the canticles dispatch from my shore © 2023 selmamartin.com Hello, dear readers. Here’s sending you a postcard from the pacific side of Japan, where I send you blessings wherever you may be.

Here’s one: Wakamizu — a beautiful aesthetic concept in a tanka on the reflection of a star bouncing in the water in my glass — pouring a glass of water reflects me a star buoyant as a New Year's Day blessed and holy water I bow and drink it up © 2023 selmamartin.com Akemashite omedetto gozaimasu: Happy New Year in Japanese *bowing* Hello, dear friends. Do you like learning new words? I have one —…

An eight-syllable lined quatrain questioning all the rains we’ve been having — These rains, we need and need them not — For the rose, the corn, for the soil But what of the hungry spider That camps out, web weaves, then gargoyles Isn’t her life worth something more too? These rains, we need and need them not — Or the worm that braved…

A brief introduction to haiku, haikai, and haiga — Image by Salih Altuntaş from Pixabay in the hush charcoal kindling cracks hearth of hearts © 2023 selmamartin.com *Haiku, haikai If you’ve ever heard of Matsuo Bashō, you know he was the greatest figure active in Japanese haikai during the latter half of the seventeenth century. Bashō made his life’s work the…

A Haiga. You haven’t seen this one before, and neither have I — you regale me pomp after lulling me all night good morning, snowfall © selmamartin.com Akemashite Omedetto Gozaimasu: Happy New Year *bowing* Hello, dear friends. Are you just waking up to the New Year? Isn’t it something? New and pristine like newly fallen snow. At least, that’s what it feels like…

#WritingPrompt: talk about something without naming it and set your senses free — Sitting beauties like hookah-smoking caterpillars — all! Those used to be crème de la crème the most prized find when you scoop one up you’re valued as The It: bric-a-brac Soon you absorb into that, party like that, your veneer reeks of that and you find yourself requiring things and skills classic of that —…

The Kwansaba is the perfect poetry form as it celebrates the family with praise and blessings. Won’t you write one too? — We’re on the last days of the year, friends. What are your feelings as yet another year ends? Happy it’s over? Good grrr riddance? Or was this your year, and ready to welcome the next? Well, whichever it is, I’m hoping that family played a crucial role in this year…