Tanka

 fragments of autumn

crimson, ochre and sienna

falling in silence

an early mist and fog

across this mountain valley

Lanadfall Anthology

Haibun

An Introduction

 

There are only four black children in my eighth-grade class, three girls and a boy. Colored was the word used then. I was sort of friends with Ruby. We hung out at recess and walked part of the way home together. One day Ruby asks me to her home.  My grandmother will be annoyed when I come home late, but I say yes, I'll come. 

 

I expect a single-family house or a two family one, like the one I live in. The building, one in a street of such buildings, has four levels. The paint is peeling and the railing is broken. 

 

A few people and kids are in the street, and they are colored. I'm in a colored neighbored, a new experience for me. There is bare dirt in front of the buildings, unlike my grandfather's neat plantings of roses and hydrangeas. I follow Ruby on worn and uneven steps up to the third floor through dun-colored halls, smelling of food and noisy with crying babies and shouting voices. I'm beginning to regret I came.

 

Upon entering the flat I see an old woman, Ruby's grandmother, scrubbing the raw wood floor on her hands and knees. Unsure of what to do, I look around: a wooden table with a linoleum top, scrubbed wooden counters neatly arranged, white curtains floating on the breeze coming through an open window. There is the fragrance of baking, and I see a plate of buns on the table.  Ruby's grandmother stands up, smiles and motions me to sit down.

 

one cactus blossom

a bee finds the sweet spot

in the center

 

"Now ain't this nice. Ya brought a playmate home wit ya, Ruby. Sit. Sit and have some biscuits."

 

This is another new experience. Not the crusty rolls or chunks of Italian bread I know, but something soft, and light.

 

"Ah'll get some butter and honey and milk. Ah allus have somethin fresh baked fo my little girl atter school. What's ya name, child?"

 

I tell her and say thank you for the biscuits, eating three, keeping up with Ruby. We don' talk, just eat, quietly sitting in that kitchen smelling of soap and baking. There are more biscuits in the oven which the grandmother watches as we eat. When we finish, not sure if I should stay or go, my timidity gets the better of me. I murmur another thank you and leave.

 

I do not go there again, or do I invite Ruby to my home, but we still hang out at recess and walk part of the way home together. After graduation that June, we never see each other again.

 

graduation day

by mid-afternoon

excitement fades                                                      

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Tanka Prose

ALL GOD’S CREATURES 

  

After an absence of several weeks, he’s back. My squirrel. Upside-down, right-side up, every which way possible, he is having his breakfast at the bird feeder. Why he went away and why he returned is a mystery. Maybe this is a different squirrel, but he is just as determined to roust the birds and have his fill. He ignores my tapping on the window. I tap a little louder. He looks up, gives me the eye, and goes back to eating, flipping out more seeds than he eats. 

 

He is a rodent, and that alone makes him an unwelcome visitor. Maybe, I shouldn’t fuss over his presence.  Doesn’t he have to eat, like the birds? If I’m willing to give birds a free meal, why not a squirrel? He is messy, but he does make me smile at his antics. He is a first-class circus act.

 

It is early spring, and he is most likely short on food sources having used up his winter cache of nuts. I let him finish his feed, which he does after about fifteen minutes. I’ll go outside and refill the feeder, knowing he’ll be back later in the day and again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. .  .

 

though hidden from view

there is a destiny

given at birth

from flea to elephant

we share a raison d'être

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