2009: Wishing you and your family & friends many blessings for this winter holiday!

From red Ravine - Haiku (one-a-day)/Daily Haiku:

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hearts explode in tears
as war-stunned Gaza seeks hope/peace
empty desks linger

**Note: Senryu written as a request from friend and in response to an Associated Press article as posted below.
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From Read Write Prompt - Get Your Poem On #57:

Topic: 'Tis the season

Note: This poem meant so much to me, and ironically, I found it right after I wrote a poem about Ithaca. It's kinda funny as I once lived on a street named Ithaca (for 17 years, in fact). I hope this poem sparks an Ithaca for you, dear readers and friends.

I'll be back next week to share with you more of my work!

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Ithaka
by C. P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon--don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon--you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind--
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.

Poem provided by the Poetry Foundation.