Hi everyone! We have a guest host for today’s Haibun Monday.

Hello. This is Imelda. I am honored to tend the bar and serve you today.

Credit:   Thorn Yang

So, here we are in the last days of November. With Thanksgiving gone, I am now in a waiting mode for the next big celebration, Christmas. In the Christian calendar, this waiting mode began last Sunday and is known as Advent which in essence is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for Christmas, on one hand, and the Second Coming of Christ, on the other.

And that brings us to our prompt today – Waiting.

Waiting is not one of my favorite words. It is, with more reason, not my favorite situation either. Waiting tests character and it is a test I often fail. When placed in a situation where I have to wait, the not so pleasant side of me rears in. It is so hard to internalize John Milton’s words – “They also serve who stand and wait.”

But there is no help for me. We all wait for something, big or small, and whether we like it or not. We wait while we are put oh hold on the telephone, we wait for the train, for a person, for a dream, etc. “I Am Waiting” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti pretty makes a good list of things we wait for –

I am waiting

to get some intimations

of immortality

by recollecting my early childhood

and I am waiting

for the green mornings to come again

youth’s dumb green fields come back again

and I am waiting

for some strains of unpremeditated art

to shake my typewriter

and I am waiting to write

the great indelible poem

and I am waiting

for the last long careless rapture

and I am perpetually waiting

for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn

to catch each other up at last

and embrace

and I am awaiting

perpetually and forever

a renaissance of wonder

For the full text, please visit here.

So for this prompt, put yourself in aiting mode. Think of what you are waiting for. What’s happening? How are you as you wait?

Are you as serene as John Burroughs was in “Waiting” –

SERENE, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more ‘gainst time or fate,
For, lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

or frustrated and helpless-

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could
Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting (waiting)
Waiting on the world to change

~ by John Mayer

tenaciously hopeful that what you wait for will one day come –

The friends I had are all gone in Texas
Sometimes you stand alone in Texas
Just when it all goes wrong in Texas
I’m waiting for my lucky day

I watch that sun go down, I keep hanging on, waiting for the wind to change
I watch the sun go down, and I keep hanging on, waiting for my luck day
Waiting for my lucky day, waiting, for my lucky day

~ Chris Isaak

or defiantly taking matters in your own hands?

I’m in the waiting room, I don’t want the news
I cannot use it
I don’t want the news
I won’t live by it
Sitting outside of town
Everybody’s always down
Tell me why?
Because, they can’t get up
Ah, come on and get up
Come on and get up

But I don’t sit idly by
I’m planning a big surprise
I’m gonna fight for what I wanna be
And I won’t make the same mistakes (’cause I know)
Because I know how much time that wastes (and function)
Function is the key

~ Fugazi

Whatever that may be, please set your thoughts preferably in a traditional haibun (http://www.hsa-haiku.org/EducationalResources/Guidelines-for-Writing-Haibun.pdf) of 1-3 tight prose capped with a traditional 5-7-5 syllable line haiku (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/haiku-poetic-form). But if you think that dampens your desire to write, and a more flexible haibun is your thing at the moment, feel free to do so. You can check out some modern forms here – https://naturewriting.com/writing-and-enjoying-haibun/ – if you want.

Once you have posted your response, kindly add your page to the list and feel free to visit and read the offerings of our fellow pub patrons. Have fun. Let me close this post with this lovely song from Colin Hays, Waiting for My Life to Begin.

 

Abour our guest blogger:

Imelda is a full-time mother of five boys with ages ranging from 2 – 13. With a house full of children, she finds solace in writing, walking in the woods, and taking pictures. She looks forward to evenings, when the house is quiet, for some moments of peace and recollection.