I wrote this haiku in honour of the brave volunteers from the RNLI who will go out in all weathers to rescue people from our seas, lakes, rivers and floods.
If you want to find out more about what they do, are interested in volunteering or wish to support them in other ways please visit their website here.
Wishing you all safe harbour,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
A Helping Hand was first published in The Asahi Shimbun, 4 June 2021. A warm thank you to David McMurray for including my poem and putting this beautiful edition together.
When my grandmother moved into a retirement home she met her first True Love (from High School) at the breakfast counter and it felt as if they’d never been apart.
He placed a red rose on her breakfast plate each morning and they had one blissful, love-filled year together before he passed away.
Wishing you all a blessed Sunday and a peaceful week ahead,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Red Rose was first published in Ribbons, Spring/Summer 2021: Volume 17, Number 2. A very big thank you to Michael McClintock and the team at Ribbons for featuring my poem and putting this wonderful edition together.
(Sharing Our Horizon, A Journey Through the Scottish Highlands with Two Adopted Whippets by Xenia Tran)
Wishing you all a blessed Sunday and a peaceful week ahead,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
A warm-hearted thank you to the editors of the Autumn Moon Haiku Journal and The Asahi Shimbun for featuring my haiku and putting these beautiful publications together.
The above haiku was first published in Autumn Moon Haiku Journal 4:2, Spring/Summer 2021. A very big thank you to Bruce Ross for featuring my poem and putting this beautiful edition together.
Wishing you all a blessed Sunday and a peaceful week ahead,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Settings: f/1.8 – 1/1600 s – ISO 400, f/1.8 – 1/1600 s – ISO 450, f/1.8 – 1/1600 s – ISO 800 and f/1.8 – 1/1600 s – ISO 125.
The above haiku were first published in EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration 2021 – Entering the Earth as part of a haiku sequence which includes our earlier poems Shapes and Shadows and Sunlight on her Wings. A big thank you to Jim Kacian and The Haiku Foundation for featuring my poems and putting this beautiful edition together.
As sleet mingles with snow, we find ourselves in a new national lockdown. To protect ourselves, to protect each other, we want to do the right thing. We stay at home once more, create our own rituals in the lull between storms.
lighting candles on your beach and mine we close our eyes open them in unison and feel the love arrive
We had a faint aurora on Friday night, visible with the naked eye, and the hand-held taken photographs with a low shutter speed created an almost abstract effect.
The poem was written three months ago and we’re hoping to start easing out of lockdown in mid-April.
Wishing you all a blessed Sunday and a peaceful week ahead,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/2.8 – 1/8 s – ISO 3200.
Special Moments was first published under the title Tier 4 in Ribbons, Winter 2021: Volume 17, Number 1. A very big thank you to Susan Weaver and the team at Ribbons for featuring my poem and putting this beautiful edition together.
Camera: Canon Powershot SX60 HS, Settings: f/3.5 – 1/15 s – ISO 1600, f/5.6 – 1/20 s – ISO 1250 and f/5 – 1/25 s – ISO 800.
The Light Always Returns was first published in Ribbons, Winter 2020: Volume 16, Number 1. A very big thank you to Christine L Villa and the team at Ribbons for featuring my poem and putting this beautiful edition together.
Dutch Goes the Photo Tuesday Photo Challenge: Tomorrow
This post is dedicated to our dear haiku friend Kristjaan from Carpe Diem Haiku Kai who lost his mother to Covid-19.
Our thoughts are with him and his family at this difficult time and with all of you who recently lost a loved one.
Wishing you a peaceful Sunday and a blessed week ahead,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Camera: Canon Powershot SX60 HS, Settings: f/6.5 – 1/1600 s – ISO 1000, f/5.6 – 1/125 s – ISO 100 and f/5 – 1/800 s – ISO 400.
The above haiku has subsequently been published in EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration 2021 – Entering the Earth as part of a four-haiku sequence which includes Seeds of Peace and Shapes and Shadows. A warm thank you to Jim Kacian and The Haiku Foundation for featuring my poems and putting this beautiful edition together.
The year began full of promise and we had a new pair of swans moving into the river before any of us had heard of Covid-19. Two days into Spring we went into lockdown and travel restrictions weren’t lifted until early July.
Many of us had to find new ways of working and being and I want to thank all of you who shine a light and are an inspiration to others.
The emphasis this year was on collaboration and I contributed forty-eight poems to a variety of journals, videos, anthologies and works of art.
My heartfelt gratitude for all our readers who read, comment and share our posts on social media. Below are the ones you liked best, together with some other highlights from each season.
We went into full lockdown on 23 March 2020 and focused on the beauty found in our local environment. In late Spring we revisited, virtually, a lovely fishing village we had travelled to the previous December in The Pier at Findochty. This was the most popular post in Spring and would become the most popular post of the year.
Spring also saw haiku poets from around the world contribute to EarthRise Rolling Haiku Collaboration 2020 in honour of the Year of the Nurse. I contributed six haiku to this collaboration, two of which were later anthologised.
Travel restrictions were lifted at the beginning of July and the Highlands were crowded with tourists from other parts of the country. We waited for everything to settle and did more virtual travelling, this time to Belfast, in order to pay homage to one of the teachers who inspired me in A Moment of Inspiration.
Summer also saw me guest-host the Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge on the theme of Sanctuary.
In Autumn we entered a Tier system according to the number of Covid-19 infections and people from higher tiers were prevented from travelling to lower tiers. This resulted in a huge reduction of tourists and we could walk more safely throughout the Highlands, which was in Tier 1, without running into visitors from high Covid areas.
Autumn also saw the publication of The Helping Hand Haiku Anthology, edited by Robert Epstein, which includes three of my poems, Bundled Wildflowers, edited by Bryan Rickert, which includes one of my poems and the Dutch anthology Aan het Woord 2020, edited by Ferre Denis, Maria de Bie and Nol Hovens, which includes three of my poems. In addition, one new poem was featured in the Haiku-kantelkalender (Haiku Calendar) 2021, edited by Ferre Denis. Falling Petals received an honourable mention in the International Section of the 2020 Haiku Invitational at the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival and ten haiku were featured in the World Haiku Series with Japanese Translations by Mr Hidenori Hiruta.
After a busy Autumn we stayed closer to home as Winter rolled in and the temperatures dropped. It became a time for Christmas socials via Zoom and catching up with friends at a safe social distance.
Winter also saw forty of my images published in Frameless Sky Issue 13 where I was the Featured Artist and the release of the beautiful anthology Dance Into the Light, edited by Michael Dylan Welch, featuring one of my poems.
A very big thank you to the editors and publishers who featured my work throughout the year.
This has been a year like no other and we sadly lost a number of friends and members of our writing community to Covid-19 and to cancer without being able to say goodbye in the way we normally would.
It has also been a year of growing and connecting in new ways and of communities coming together.
A huge thank you to Frank, Kristjaan, Misky, Ronovan and the team at dVerse Poets for your inspiring poetry prompts, to Brian, Christine, Emily, Heather, Katherine, Ping, Punam, Kristian and Sheryl for your wonderful word prompts and to Becca, Cee, Jez, Lisa, Paula, Sue & Gerry, Terri and Amy, Ann-Christine, Patti & Tina for your fabulous photographic prompts.
We leave with you a song by Show of Hands that seems fitting for our times:
Thank you again for the love and we wish you all a blessed, healthy and happy 2021.
These images were taken in November 2017 at the start of a beautiful Winter.
Wishing you all a wonderful Wednesday,
with love from Xenia xxx
Photographs by Xenia Tran, edited in lr.
Camera: Panasonic Lumix FZ200, Settings: f/4 – 1/250 s – ISO 320, f/4 – 1/800 s – ISO 100 and f/4 – 1/320 s – ISO 250.
All Souls’ Night was first published in Autumn Moon Haiku Journal, Volume 4:1, Autumn-Winter 2020-2021. A very big thank you to Bruce Ross for featuring my poem and putting this beautiful edition together.
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