Common Ground

We perpetuate distinctions between people and tribes to winnow down who we could spend our life energies on, arbitrary cut-offs, sometimes hard-lines. Maybe we should blame Sesame Street and that game 3 things are kinda the same. One thing just doesn’t belong here…da da dada da

Common Ground is the prompt this week at One Deep Breath. It’s heartening to read all the responses of peace-making. What takes us past language and other allegiances and conveniences to meaningful solidarity of a moment and of an underlying commonality? What unites and makes us share as strangers? Shared food and drink, loss of loved ones and another’s sorrow, time of life of children growing up, over-friendly pups, sports, laughter, acceptance of shared space.

Not a haiku or tanka, just a short free form…

maple keys
drop in grass

pinstripe, jeans, bikinis
duct taped shoes

all pause — warm sun
demands it

To close, the common ground of hope in the words of Nakamura Kusatao (1901-1983), haiku magazine editor:

yake ato ni the concrete left
nokoru tataki ya in the fire’s wake…
temari tsuku a ball bounces

[via The Haiku Handbook by Higginson and Harter.]