Haibun

                                                A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP

   Still awake… a calm lake, clear reflections, soft breezes….I drift

   Still awake…I am now by the sea, waves gently lapping against rocks, 

          the splash and gurgle…

   Still awake…hilltop vistas, rolling green hills, waving grasses           
   Still awake….

                                                         first light

                                           tickling the edges of sky
                                                    fly on my nose
Frogpond, 2010

 

Senryu

                                                    a Pollack painting–
                                                    the three year old says
                                                    "Mine is better."

                                                    the puppy
                                                    after breaking wind
                                                    barks at his rump

                                                    balancing accounts
                                                    the temperature drops
                                                    a few more degrees
Kernels, 4/13
Kernels, 4/13
Bottle Rockets, 2/14

Haibun

                                                    RENEWAL

 

Our new home will eventually be in the country.  We go there often to paint and work in the yard.

It's early May.  The rolling hills are lush with new grass.  The road bends and turns. A red barn and silo.  Holsteins and horses standing quietly in pastures.  Dogwood along the road, the delicate limbs spreading outward.  

So much to see.  I want to go slowly to absorb it all, to have this beauty become a permanent part of my being.

All too soon we reach our house where work awaits.  Once…someone's pride.  Now…overgrown grass to cut, bushes to prune, dead wood to remove.  So many trees and shrubs left to wither and die.  Years of neglect to undo. 

 

                                                the old house–
                                                finding in the side yard
                                                white lilacs

Contemporary Haibun On-line September 2006

Haibun

                                                    CLASS REUNION

After 40 years I wonder who will come.  The small Catholic women’s college isn’t open anymore.  There’s just the building, now a film institute.  I’ve come three thousand miles to see a bunch of old women. Knowing they’re old, but still surprised at how old they all look.  We look.  I sometimes forget to include myself.

                                                   trying on a smile–

                                                   the face in the mirror
                                                   not what I want to see

 We swap stories about marriages, divorces, death; show pictures of children, grandchildren and pets.  Some bragging, some honesty, some return to that free exchange of  confidences with a chosen few.  My best friend:   a little heavier, but the same deep voice and hearty laugh, the same vivacious personality and the same vice.

 
                                                   sharing smokes outside—
                                                   all the afternoon heat
                                                   in the low brick wall

Frogpond, Winter 2005