Haibun

 

                                          CHRISTMAS DAY 2002

 

Christmas afternoon at my daughter’s house.   Lulled by good food, holiday music and family  cheer.  Realizing too late we have stayed too long.

 

                                            a spreading whiteness

                                            as darkness descends—

                                            the intense quiet

 

Street not plowed.  Almost no indication where curbs are.  We open the side windows to see better.  Heavy-laden trees and bushes reach out to grab at the car and lash us.  Can’t make a hill.  We back down and try again.  A longer run this time, but still not quite.  Once more we back down and slide into a drift.

 

                                             wind-blown snow

                                             the slow slog back

                                             to family

 

Presence, #28 Jan. 2006

HAIGA

Haigaonline
spring 2014
part of a series,
Fantasy Garden

HAIBUN

                                                    WEEDING

Once more I’m down on my hands and knees creeping along the garden bed pulling weeks.  It’s an on-going spring and summer activity, never getting ahead, always playing catch-up. Weed killers or preventers have limited or no success.  What works, although only temporarily, is pulling them.

There is some pleasure in this chore.  It requires no deep concentration on the activity itself, freeing my thoughts to float on the breeze.  To think about big things–the unrest in the Middle East, unemployment, the national debt.  And, little things…

                                                 an ant

                                                           crawling across my hand
                                                                                             the long journey

 WORLD HAIKU CLUB REVIEW

March 2013

HAIBUN

                                            NAXOS BLUE

Blue…as the sky is blue, a hot blue seen on a scorching day at noon.  Blue…as the Aegean Sea is blue, a shimmering blue under the never ending sun.  Blue on doors and shutters, on small boats in the harbor, on café signs, on domes of churches in the dusty hills.  Blue against the glare of white stucco buildings, blue against the sheen of white marble steps and sidewalks.

                                          blue and white bowl

                                              ancient history takes shape

                                                   in my hands

A HUNDRED GOURDS, Sept. 2013

JOURNEYS, An anthology of International Haibun

Edited by Angelee Deodhar, 2014

 

 

Tanka Sequence

                                                   MEMORIES II

                                                he  came poor
                                                with needles and thimble
                                                to a far land
                                                     his vision and life
                                                     pass on through me

                                               a walnut brown face
                                               from hours in the sun
                                               tending his garden
                                                    on a cold, wet morning
                                                    he is lowered into the earth
Modern English Tanka
March 2005

Haiga

Daily Haiga, October 2013

Haibun

 

                                                 A CITY CORNER 

 

A hot day in June.  New York City.  Lower East Side.  People-watching from a corner café.  The tourist busses rumble down 5^th Avenue, holding at the corner light.  Sun-drenched double-deckers.  The tourists squinting.  A guide, standing before one group, microphone in hand, lips moving.  “And here we have…and there…and there…”  No need for me to hear his words. 

 

This is a casual area of the City.  No high fashion, society or career women, no Brooks Brothers.  executive suits walking around.  Every-day New Yorkers, shopping the small markets and delis, the dollar stores.  Dog walkers, three and four canines marching like obedient foot-soldiers.  Mommies with strollers, delivery vans, loading, unloading.  The occasional vagrant or bag-lady shuffling through the corner trash-cans, wary and abandoned expressions on their faces.

 

                                                    shielding my eyes

                                                    from the sun glare

                                                    Walk.  Don’t Walk.

 Contemporary Haibun On-line, Sept. 2009

 

Haiku

                                                       
                                                    tree viewing
                                                    a thinner crowd
                                                    on the steep trail

                                                    the rain over–
                                                    strong winds continue
                                                    to shake leaves dry

                                                    autumn dampness
                                                    the midnight train
                                                    late again

Daily Haiga, January 2010
Bottle Rockets, February 2009
Modern Haiku, spring 2014