Haibun

                                  Daggett Street
         

One fourth of the yard given to vegetables, one fourth to grass and a clothesline, one half to a grape arbor.  Lilies-of-the-valley and jack o’lanterns grow in the shadows. Under the thick vines, pieces of linoleum placed over the hard packed dirt. A rusty metal table and wobbly chairs where Grandma sits shelling peas or mending, Grandpa drinking a glass of wine made from his own grapes.  Me as a toddler, my sister two years older, playing.

                                          muggy heat
                                a sudden awareness
                                  the clock stopped

Early morning trucks rumble up the street.  The Goodyear factory, a cheese processing plant, a paper box company–each with its own pick-ups and drop-offs.  The noise, the smells.  Just part of living on Daggett Street.  There are some benefits:  in summer, a thirsty group of workers always willing to buy lemonade from two little girls; in all seasons, brick factory walls good for tossing balls against.

                                        heavy snow
                                snuggling under a blanket
                                         of silence

The rooms empty, smaller with the furniture gone.  The house in need of paint, the arbor, full of grapes that will not be picked.  The taxi honks and we depart.

                                       autumn colors
                             blurring in a swirl of leaves
                                    all the days to come

Modern Haiku, Autumn 2011