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Volume 37.1
Spring 2006

 

sample haibun

 

untitled

pity the daughters of beautiful mothers the years spent waiting to grow into a beauty that never comes the sympathetic looks finally understood at the moment when childhood ends

mother’s visit
side by side we outline
our lips


by Roberta Beary

The Night Anonymous

During college I used to get a break from my studies by going to the music department to find a practice room with a piano. No one seemed to use these rooms, especially at night, so I would go there to play my emotions out, find solutions to problems, heal old wounds. That late summer night I was particularly frustrated; I remember playing my piano pieces over and over again with no resolution felt and few wounds healed. Soon, however, I heard the hesitant first notes of a deeply sonorous saxophone. What at first I thought were practice notes transformed themselves into an accompaniment complimenting and counterpointing my improvisations. We played back and forth like this for at least an hour; I was thrilled, yet still green with youth and shyness I fled, slipping into the night anonymous.

heat lightning—
the searching sounds
of a solo


by Marjorie Buettner

 

 

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