The Japanese Stone Garden

April 28, 2025

In recognition of April Poetry Month, I’m pleased to introduce a new poem written by Reni Roxas. Reni joined the Writing Sisters in 2009 bringing her unique talents in both prose and poetry and insights from her Filipino home country and heritage.

Reni Roxas – Author, Writing Teacher, Editor, and Owner of Tahanan Book Publishing

The Japanese Stone Garden, I felt used space and the placement of single words to replicate the sparseness of the stone and sand. Even the sky and clouds are so far removed from me as a visitor. The green moss and ferns offer the smallest comfort with color and texture. I found myself taking time to breathe and just be.

How do you experience this poem?

The Japanese Stone Garden

Rock
sand
fern
and moss
is all

No trees
for shade

No flowers
to remind
you of the world’s
beauty

Nothing
moves
in a
stone
garden

The bench invites

you sit

Above you

only sky

and clouds …

— Reni Roxas

Rock Garden at Hickman Park, Edmonds, Washington USA

RENI ROXAS is a writer, editor, and publisher. Her children’s books have won awards in her native Philippines, including a National Children’s Book Award.

In the United States, Reni’s short work has been published in The New York Times, Writer’s Digest, and most recently, Wellspringwords.

In 2022, Reni co-founded Women Writing, a Manila-based organization that seeks to empower women through the joy of writing. Her company, Tahanan Books, has been making meaningful books for Filipino families for over thirty years.

Her newest children’s book, Pretty Peach and the Color-Matching Kaleidoscope (2024), won first prize (children’s short story category) in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature. In 2008, she moved with her two sons to the Pacific Northwest, and as Reni likes to tell it, “By an unbelievable stroke of good fortune I met Kizzie Jones and was warmly invited to join the Edmonds Writing Sisters in 2009.”

Reni happily displaying her newest book Pretty Peach and the Color-Matching Kaleidoscope at FULLY BOOKED Bookshop located in Bonifacio Global City, Philippines.

Comments

Kay
April 28, 2025
What a charming and hopeful post! It led me to smile on a cloudy day. The italicized “moves” is movement in type and sets up the contrast with stillness so well!
Reply
1. Kizzie
  April 28, 2025
  Kay, your uplifting note brightens my day! And yes, Reni has a gift and is passionate about her craft. Thank you!
  Reply
Celia
April 28, 2025
Thank you for this beautiful reminder to sit and BE with what is.
Reply
1. Kizzie
  April 28, 2025
  Yes- relishing the time and place to take a deep breath.
  Reply
Monda Van Hollebeke
April 28, 2025
Reni’s beautiful poem presents the stillness and stark loveliness of both the garden artist and the poet who captures it and recreates it in words.
I feel serenity. I imagine sitting on the bench and meditating.
This poem connects me to the earth, and in the end, to the sky and the universe.
Reply
1. Kizzie
  April 28, 2025
  Yes- Reni skillfully brought me to a place of stillness and breathing in the surroundings. I know Reni will cherish your reflections.
  Reply
Meg Mahoney
April 28, 2025
Having sat in stone gardens, I settled into the perfect sparseness of words here!
Reply
1. Kizzie
  April 29, 2025
  Yes, Reni has the gift of transporting the reader into her world. Thank you for your reflection.
  Reply
Marjorie Evasco
April 29, 2025
Good morning, dear Reni.
Your poem was my morning meditation today. I love the sparseness of your poem’s language & the silent spaces where one’s mind can sit quietly & be. Just be.
Thank you!
Love,
Marj
Reply
1. Kizzie
  April 29, 2025
  Reni will be so pleased and touched by your kind words and reflection- as am I.
  Thank you.
  Reply
Reni Roxas
April 29, 2025
I treasure your responses, dear Kizzie and fellow nature lovers. When all is still in a stone garden, one is compelled to look up and see—really SEE!—the elegant rolling motion of the clouds. National poet laureate Ada Limon said in an interview on NPR today that a poem transforms the writer who wrote it. The art of appreciating how Nature moves (or deigns not to move)—is the gift that writing this poem gave to me. Thank you, all, for sharing your lovely insights. Enjoy TODAY before it slips away!
Reply
1. Kizzie
  April 29, 2025
  Since the day we met you’ve been a breath of fresh air in my life.
  Reply
Alfonso Winston
April 29, 2025
❤️
Reply
1. Kizzie
  April 30, 2025
  Thank you Winston!
  Reply
Caroline Colemam
April 30, 2025
What a beautiful poem. The turn at the end surprised me in the most wonderful way. I’d expected the stone garden to lead to dark thoughts because we were told of all it lacked… and yet we look up and see more than we thought possible. I loved this. Thank you. Caroline Coleman
Reply
1. Kizzie
  April 30, 2025
  Thank you- I know Reni will be touched by your reflections.
  Reply
Susan
May 1, 2025
Lovely, Reni! Truly Japanese indeed, no embellishments—just raw, distilled truth, highlighting the fleeting moment, seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. I love the way the word moves is italicized and indented, the only movement in the poem that celebrates stillness. So sparse, and yet so rich!
Thanks for sharing!
Reply
1. Kizzie
  May 1, 2025
  Thank you Susan. I know Reni will appreciate your reflections- and so do I!
  Reply
Beth Morrison
May 4, 2025
Reni’s poem is a reminder to look up and be still. Thank you for observing the comfort and ease to be found in stillness and the wonder-filled sky.
Reply
1. Kizzie
  May 4, 2025
  Reni will be so pleased with your reflections. Thank you kindly for your comment.
  Reply