Carpe Diem # 1523 - Renga with H F Noyes.

bright fall day 
the brook wanders off
leaving its shimmer

a silk scarf trailing
on the forest floor





as if nothing happened
the crow here
the willow there

the autumn sun peers through the leaves
watching the caterpillars





rusty toy truck
stuck on the mudbank
a cargo of blossoms 

a  line of ants march by
a few of them hitch a ride






evening walk
the creak of my boots
invade the stars

the cricket choir chirps
ferns curl their fronds and sigh

 

raking aside the leaves
on the backyard pond
i release the moon

frog hopscotches lily pads
moon bathing with dragonflies




full moon rising
nowhere on the empty beach
to hide our love

time for a midnight swim
the fish don't seem to mind




 H. F. Noyes (1918 – 2010)

The poet, editor, and psychotherapist H.F. "Tom" Noyes was born in 1918 on a farm in Oregon to which he attributes his love of nature. He attended Yale and Columbia, majoring in Anthropology and Social Psychology. He also studied Developmental Psychology at the Rousseau Institute and the University of Geneva. Immediately after graduation, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II as an ordnanceman and torpedoman, and then as an ensign in the Scouts and Raiders (U.S.Marines). After the war he obtained a Doctorate in Counselling, as well as training in Gestalt Therapy and Jungian Psychoanalysis. He practiced psychotherapy in New York City for 25 years, retiring in 1970 to live the simple life in Politia, outside Athens, Greece.

Tom’s interest in haiku began through study of R. H. Blyth’s four-volume Haiku. Noyes' work appeared in poetry journals worldwide and in many anthologies, including collections published in the USA, Canada, Slovenia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, India, Romania, Italy, Portugal, Greece, and England. His favourite authors were Thoreau, D.H. Lawrence, and Dostoevsky, and his favourite poets were Frost, Jeffers, Yannis Ritsos, Francis Ponge, the T'ang and Sung Dynasty poets, and the old masters: Basho, Buson, and Issa of Japan. In Modern Haiku (2008, 39:1, p.125)

H. F. Noyes wrote: “Re definitions of haiku, I honor Basho’s, ‘Do not follow in the footsteps of the ancients. Seek what they sought.’ If they could speak from beyond the grave, Basho, Buson and Issa would caution that a haiku is not a product of mind, but of heartmind. The most precious ingredient in a haiku that ingratiates itself with us is likely to be spontaneity . . . an unselfconscious catching of the haiku spirit as it flies. The depth reflected is chiefly through afterthought in readers’minds. 
The writer is content to convey a sense of wonder. "