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Volume 39.2
Summer 2008

 

sample haibun

 

Cutting

Through shrouded clouds, moonlight breaks. What to write? Having made up good news for brother's letter, I ask about the food, sand. Tempted to ask about the mortars he mentioned . . .

Morning. The letter, unfinished, lays upon the desk. The sky has closed over completely. Half the lawn bristles with see-heavy heads. Drizzle on heaped bramble; the washing hangs limp. Whine of the trimmer through stems. To fight the boredom, gardening trousers US Somali issue, I pretend to sweep for mines. The mailbox smacks metallically: dull thud of correspondence. I walk round front to pick through some bills; there is no blue military envelope. The picture on a postcard reminds me it's Obon time back in Japan, the festival of the dead. I don't read the message, but am struck by the picture's explanation: 'The annual Toro Nagashi Ceremony, Hawai'i, which commemorates the end of World War II.'

dusk lamp warm—
flames from paper lanterns
in a photo's tide


by Jamie Edgecomb

 

 

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