Scents Of Childhood: A Poetry/Prose Challenge!
Jeques
PExer
What scents remind you of childhood? A sniff of it leaves you nostalgic, bringing back memories from childhood. Share them with us in poetry form or prose of your choice!
Let me share with you mine in Haiku form:
Smoky scent of woods
Slowly burning at sunbreak
Of my childhood lost.
~ooo~
Ricefields smoldering
Scents of morning after rain
The sun is rising.
~ooo~
Salty ocean breeze
Caressing the hair and face
Of the grown up boy.
----
hai·ku - a major form of Japanese verse, written in 17 syllables divided into 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, and employing highly evocative allusions and comparisons, often on the subject of nature or one of the seasons.
Let me share with you mine in Haiku form:
Smoky scent of woods
Slowly burning at sunbreak
Of my childhood lost.
~ooo~
Ricefields smoldering
Scents of morning after rain
The sun is rising.
~ooo~
Salty ocean breeze
Caressing the hair and face
Of the grown up boy.
----
hai·ku - a major form of Japanese verse, written in 17 syllables divided into 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, and employing highly evocative allusions and comparisons, often on the subject of nature or one of the seasons.
Comments
write a haiku. you just stop
at the seventeenth
Postscripts:
To All: the challenge is to write about the scents that remind you of childhood in any form. Have a good one!:)
Does the scent of freshly cut grass reminds you of your first day in school?
or
Does the tutti-fruity scent of your eraser reminds you of your first crush in grade school?
or
How about the scent of a newly plastic covered notebook?
or
Johnson baby powder, baby cologne and so on....
Share them with us.:)
It's amazing how sometimes you just suddenly remember things that you've forgotten already. A few minutes ago, after reading this line in my chat window:
(16:55:54) Jet: salamat po ^^
I got an unexpected flood of memories I thought I've lost a long time ago.
I suddenly remembered how it was for me everyday as a highschool kid. I remember being dropped off every morning by the school service near Para?aque wetmarket by the schoolbus driver who insists Jai Alai can make him a millionaire
I remember checking for the latest issue of Funny Komiks. I remember stealing a peek at the morning tabloids at about the same time as that. Then I'd walk by the alley where flowers are sold and wonder if it's my turn to go offer flowers for the Virgin Mary in our classroom. Then I'd pass by the iron gates leading to the church. I remember seeing an old lady who always says "Maawa sa bulag po" holding up a delapidated valvoline cup with very few coins.
I'd put in a coin or two and hearing her say "Salamat po!" with sincere, glad eyes made me feel good. Sometimes she wasn't there. Sometimes it was her just as blind husband. Eitherway I gave what I could.
After that I'd drop by the adoration chapel and say a short, monotonous prayer - the same one I'd utter every night before I sleep:
Lord, forgive me for all the wrongs I've done, the wrongs I'm doing, and the wrong's that I'll be doing (note: probably in anticipation of the following morning's session of tabloid viewing). Lord sana po hindi ako maulila. Lord sana po hindi ako bumagsak sa Science. Lord sana po hindi na ako managinip ng masama.
I'd exit the adoration chapel and proceed inside the school where I'll be checking out what homework everybody's copying. I'd leech off paper from one of my friends or, if I can't, I'd defeatedly walk to the forever scowling Ester of the canteen's bookstore (don't ask) and actually buy paper worth five pesos.
I'd go copy whatever assignment and then proceed to talk to my friends about the episode of WWF Raw the night before. Morning bell rings. Morning over.
That was ten years ago.
I've long since stopped passing by the wet market, the flower shop, and the tabloid stand. (and no, I'm no longer excited by those things).
The schoolservice driver never became a millionaire. All he got for it was chump change and a divorce. Win-win? I don't think so.
What became of the blind old lady, I'll never really know. I hope for better tidings, but I'm not too good an optimist. Maybe she's still there. Maybe she'll still there but only in spirit. Salamat po!
I no longer pass by the adoration chapel. My prayers have shrunk siginificantly and became lower in frequency. Less requests, more thanks. Was it for the better? I'm not really sure. I'd save discussing religion for another day.
I no longer have assignments to copy. For what it's worth, I learned how to copy **** really really fast while trying to learn what I'm writing at the same time - sorta like Teevo, but more sinister.
I no longer use intermediate paper, or any paper other than bondpaper - the backs of photocopies or printouts. If possible, I avoid using my ugly handwriting (which, inconveniently, disabled me from forging my own excuse letters.)
Ester is still in the canteen, my younger peers tell me. She still has the scowl. A bad expression really is for eternity. I bet those barbecues they've been trying to sell us are still the same stock they're conning kids into buying now. Somebody should carbon date those things just to check out if they're dinosaur meat.
WWF ate WCW up and became WWE. Kane who was supposed to be a burn victim now show's his flawless skin on everybody. Pall Bearer is dead, Ric Flair is decaying, and Undertaker still looks young.
Me? I'm ten years older. I certainly have changed a lot since then. For better or worse, I'd rather not guess (but if my life depended on it, I'd go for worse).
And then I'd think, all these memories, why are they still around? They are neither important to what I do for a living nor significant enough to be worth remembering.
I realize, at the end of what you make of a day, you become what the day makes of you. And these little changes done to you by what you do, they pile up - like a compost pit of cause and effect. And in time, your personality blooms from this pit.
Also I realize what I just said won't make much sense for quite a while. Maybe when I read this entry again in ten years it will. Or maybe never, but I won't know until I read this again. Or maybe I'll never get to read this again - like if it disappears in a couple of years, because we never really know, right?
Then one day I'll see something that will make me remember again.
(16:55:54) Jet: salamat po ^^
A day in the life of.
from: http://redkinoko.blogspot.com/2007/03/day-in-life-of.html
I have noted your dislike for the Haiku form, I understand, because their are only a few Filipino who appreciate and write this ancient Japanese short verse. I am maybe one of the few and I learned that the former President Cory Aquino is one of us.:)
Here in America, Haiku is becoming in Vogue again. Many westerner writers love the briefness of the form and the volume of thoughts it can impress upon the reader. As Author R.H. Blythe wrote on eastern haiku form, He described it as a poetry with double function: "It expresses what is and what is not, the particular and the universal, the minute and the vague. All forms of poetry, haiku included, always come in pairs - for the absolute also exists because of the relative - and the poet implies the other, the reader supplies the implicit."
Now, let me share with you a longer poem I wrote from memories of childhood...
Childhood Nook, Revisited!
By: Jesus B. Jamora (04/21/06)
I sketch a landscape in my mind's canvas
Tracing the figures using my child's eyes
Paint it with colors just the way it was
I feel brimful of joy that my soul cries.
There's the refulgent streams of the river
Flowing beneath the bamboos' lush bower
Their drowsy whistles I still remember
When winds blow through the leaves and the boulders.
There's the rock that rests on the reef of stones
Where the tyke sits when he would go fishing.
Silence croons him with nature's pristine tones,
When a fish pulls his bait, his heart's dashing.
There's the lilies that cupped the morn's dew drops.
Frogs stay motionless on their giant leaves
Until an insect strays by their tongue traps.
Their prying eyes ever alert like theives.
There's the dragonfly that hovers above
My head and the tip of my fishing rod.
This scenes I always reminisce with love
It never fail to cheer me when I'm sad.
There's the sun peeping through the verdant trees
Casting their shimmering hued reflections
On the running waters like pagentries
Moving me to profound contemplations.
Ah, idyllic landscape, ethereal arts!
We always have that child's nook in our hearts.
Now I need - we need - more of your thoughts that would conjure nostalgia.:)
Old Mango Tree
Usually at high noon,
you would dance with the
wind,
gaze at the
rice fields, and
sway your arm to
lull me in the hammock.
But today,
you deciphered the language
of my tears.
So you draw the
sun to hide your
wrinkled skin filled with
scars of
heart shapes
(with names of lil boys and girls
inside.)
I wonder
how many rings have you grown
for me to scar you
with two girls names,
and flamboyantly encircle it
in a heart shape?
I admire you for your courage, for being fearless to speak your mind and wear the color thats your own, expressed in this piece.
The images painted in this poem conjure nostalgia. I, too, once used the mango trunk as my canvas. A very common early artwork of kids who grow up in the province, but it is so novel for you to use it in an unconventional way, in an unconventional love. I hope the younger generation would have time to enjoy the simple life of the countryside, and I hope they, too, would not be afraid to wear the color thats thier own, like you. There is beauty in individuality.
"'Tis great to think with a free mind, 'tis wonderful to love with an unrestrained heart." - My Mantra and part of my 8-day poem "Changes." - Jeques
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and your gift of writing.
I wish you well.
Jeques
pull me from sleep.
how the aroma of sinangag
heralds another day.
how the stinging carress of the water
pains my hairless chest.
how the clangs of the sorbetero's bell
excite my afternoons.
childhood. how can i get you back?
~~~
nozmail,
Thank you very much for sharing with us your thoughts and for allowing us to remember sweet memories of childhood with your retrospective poem. Reading and writing poems like this brings us back to the places and time of memories, re-living them and celebrating childhood once again. We don't really loss it, as long as we remember.
I wish you well.
Jeques
finally, move on.
there are so many reasons to look forward to, and to be happy with life.
we can always choose to be a better person in spite of the bad moments in the past.
I wish you well.
Jeques
Here I am again inviting everyone to visit that part of us, that corner within us which holds the happy thoughts of childhood.
We never really loss something, as long as we remember.
"Our friendship begun as soon as our first class in grade one started. We met in a classroom that smelled with the mixed scents of our fresh pads, newly plastic covered notebooks, scented erasers, newly sharpened pencils, lunch boxes, bottled juices(mine was milk) encased in our new school bags. I remember I used safeguard soap when I took a bath for my first day in school, I remember I was wearing a new shirt, I forgot the color, but I can still remember how it smells... All these remind me of my first bestfriend I lost with the passing of time, the places we reached and contenually explore that widened the space between us... Our memories were left on the desk we shared in our classroom where the emblems of our friendship vanished with time. But I still know how the desk smells... well then, I never really lost the memory of my bestfriend, as long as I remember.
Excerpt from my "1st's" essay collection #4: "My First Bestfriend."
- Jeques
By Jesus B. Jamora, 2006
Let the child run free, up-hills or down-plains
Like a gazelle that gallops in prairies.
Let him swim in lakes, bath in rains
And coquette like the mystical fairies.
Censor him not for he is free from stains
Trust not the filthy minds of the gentries.
Free the child from the restraining chains
And from the customs' narrow bounderies.
Let him be for his generations' gains ~
Allow the children to weave their stories.
- Jeques
Shake the lucid liquid beads
Off the sturdy trees.
~ Jeques
By: Jesus B. Jamora, 2006
I walk the same roads I trod at eighteen,
I stand on my hometown's pavement again.
In life's transits we're merely passengers.
As I glance upon the streaming strangers,
I feel a certain familiarity.
There's strange kinship in the locality.
I take the same spot I took at sixteen,
I'm seated at the same station again.
I can't move forward in my travels blind,
Flashbacks of my past trips rush in my mind.
There are story-filled structures in the streets.
We are commuters to life's immense fleets.
I smell the same air I breath at thirteen,
I'm home to the place of my youth again.
~ Jeques
Postscripts: "We depart to arrive, we leave to come home."
Little Leah's Leis
Every night you see
six-year-old Little Leah
on busy highways.
Sampaguita leis
she vends. A peso or two
for tomorrow's rice.
After a car's kiss,
blooms enwrap her. In heaven,
divine leis, she'll make.
/totomai
hope this one will count :-)
Moving Haiku pieces. Human emotion sketched by words with rich images in Haiku form. I am an avid Haiku reader and when I get the inspiration from nature, I capture them in paper and write haiku, too.
I love the works of Basho(1715-1783), the themes of his works are natural beauty and with reference to the seasons. Your pieces posted here has more of the influence of my other favorite haiku writer: Issa(1762-1827). He is a great follower of Basho but added fresh touch to his style. His verses are essentially pathetic. Poems in human affairs dressed in haiku.
Thanks for sharing.
I wish you well - Jeques
great images here.
haikus seem short but they have an impact that is powerful than some forms of poetry. *okay*
anyway, when i had the time to write, i make some haikus of sort. hehe, everytime i read these i thought i was crazy then. too bad, i didnt have the will to complete the alphabet.
candlelight Christmas
cosmic carols comfort cold cheeks
cathedral's cobwebs
skies silently screams
spews snows, searches stranded spirits
souls seeking solace
brownish butterflies
ballet besides blueberries
birds bedazzlement
hope i can write more. thanks for this thread
Highly creative use of words to achieve both craftmanship and still maintain the natural flow of thoughts. It is hard to combine craftmanship with natural flow that is required in poetry. One is often sacrificed to achieve the other. It takes efforts and I think yours shine here in this pieces.
At Days End
Wave at twilight,
dip mud-caked feet in the creek;
walk towards the grass-thatched hut,
squat on the bamboo floor;
share the coconut wine,
fireflies waltzing around;
strum the guitar,
listen to the applause of rice grains;
say goodnight to the moon,
pink skies will arrive for the harvest.
/totomai
I think after my muse left me, i have written a blog about my passion in writing, it includes the links to some of my poems. Click Me