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Volume 34.3
Autumn 2003

sample haibun

 

 

Thiruvananthapuram, Summer

Dusk comes after a long day of crowds. Flags in the street, men fasting in public. Women march behind banners, hammer & sickle. An ash-smeared sadhu on the corner, watching. Weathered buildings, the new ones already stained. Rubbish piles, open drains—a beggar women, infant perched on her lap. Carts, tents, tea stalls. A garlanded statue. Patchwork city. Like the torn, faded posters on mud-spattered walls. Like peeling paint.

Nightfall . . .
moon the color
of urine

Kim Dorman

• • •

O Holy Night

Christmas Eve. Our small room glows with lamp light and the smooth multicolored cones of Christmas tree lights as Mama and I hang glossy bulbs on the fresh Douglas fir. The midnight blue globe I hold in my hand matches her blue velvet dress. As we work, her face is mysterious, a forest on a moonless night. Was there ever a child who loved a mother more? Was there ever a night more holy? A rap on our door. When she opens it, the man who would be my stepfather stands on the threshold laughing with Christmas greetings, a dark-haired angel with eyes like stars, his arms full of treasures neither one of us could ever imagine.

dark winter sky
faintly, faintly the music
of the spheres

Marian Olson


David Cobb

 

 

 

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