Sunday, December 15, 2013

Haibun


                                             THE BALDWIN HILLS DAM 

 December 14, 1963.  The peace of a Saturday afternoon shattered by helicopters.  Police cars cover the streets, bull horns at full volume. 

ATTENTION!  DAM CRACKING!  EMERGENCY!  EVACUATE!

            People rushing outside. What dam?  Where?

            "Didn't you know?  In those hills." 
 
            "No, we didn't know. Just moved here two weeks ago."

                                                courtyard Christmas tree–
                                                silver ornaments
                                                reflect the sun

EVACUATE….NOW…NOW!

Turn off the oven.  Grab the two children, bottles, diapers.  What else?  We don't know.  Take one car.  Don't be separated.  Lock the door.  East?  West?  North.  To my mother's house.

Rock and roll on the car radio. Jingle Bells and Rudolph.  Where's the news?  Another block, then another.  A slow moving line of cars.  Tense faces and short tempers.

"It's going….going…It's GONE!  Gushing water… gaining momentum… cutting a swath down the hillside along Cloverdale Road."  The announcer, reporting from a helicopter, is breathless.  "Still coming…292 million gallons…trees uprooted…houses breaking apart…cars tumbling." 

Our apartment is not in the direct path, but still…  In silence we worry. Traffic begins to thin out as we travel further north.

                                                puffy clouds–
                                                at a neighborhood playground
                                                children play dodge ball

We watch the news at my parents' house.  An hour and a half to empty the dam.  Nine feet of water on the Village Green apartments.  Five dead.  Eighteen rescued from roof tops and collapsed houses.

Early the next morning we are allowed in the area temporarily. Already a sour smell from dirty water and debris. At our apartment door, a water line at two feet, but only a puddle inside.  Our Volkswagen–the engine, clogged with mud.

It could have been worse. 
                                                Sunday church bells
                                                to and from the door
                                                the sucking mud         

Shamrock #5, Jan. 2008

Monday, December 9, 2013

Tanka



                                    nearly winter
                                    the days pass with a quickness
                                    unheeded;
                                    there is no point to ask
                                    why I didn't pay attention

                                    along the trail
                                    a thatch of moldering leaves–
                                    the smell
                                    of old wine barrels
                                    in a dank cellar

Tanka Society of America
2006 anthology
Anglo Tanka Society Journal, 1/08/2005

 
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Saturday, November 16, 2013

Haibun



                                             FIREWOOD

 Once it was a shade tree, pale green in the spring with the sun slipping through.  Darker green in the summer, a canopy providing a respite from the heat of the sun.  In the autumn, a burst of gold, glowing even in rain and fog.  In winter, a sculpture of shapes reaching for the sky and moving shadows on the snow.  Now, just a dead maple tree, wrapped with red poison ivy vines for a final display.
                                               the sun
                                               just over the horizon
                                               tree cutters at work
                                                  
                                  
Contemporary Haibun print journal spring 2004


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Monday, November 11, 2013

Haiku


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                                                 sweeping leaves
                                                 from the patio
                                                 helped by the wind

                                                 through a doorway
                                                 a whiff of decaying leaves
                                                 in the morning dampness


Stylus Poetry Journal, Nov. 2004
Hokku Web Page, Dec. 2003

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Haibun



                                        A PUMPKIN PATCH

A cold, rainy night. The gardens and meadows of an historic house are covered with carved pumpkins. Each glowing with a flickering candle, each unique, from menacing to beautiful.  Tiffany stained glass, skeletal hands, skulls, faces of the famous, a garden of bugs and birds, boats, animals, the moon, a sea bed of fish, abstract art.
 
Three thousand pumpkins. The setting up, nightly candle lighting and the cleaning up when the display is over, done by volunteers.

 Nearly as many visitors as pumpkins. Noisy, but orderly. We follow a path snaking through and around the displays, umbrellas up, trying to keep dry and not poke the person in front of us.  My head spins.  Left, right, up to the house top, along a raised bank. A pirate ship, a witch, Frankenstein, Dracula.                 

                                            lightning flashes–
                                                 a shivering rumble
                                                         rolls through the crowd
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Haiku

  weekend getaway coffee on the veranda with a gecko Sense  & Sensibility