The late foliage in New York’s backyard slowly yields to the growing cold and dark of late Autumn. & the third Thursday of November arrives this week. Those celebrating the coming US holiday know what that means. Frank Tassone, here, your host for today’s Haibun Monday, where we blend prose (poetry or otherwise) and haiku to form that unique Japanese hybrid. Today, let’s talk about Thanksgiving.

I alluded to when I hosted Haibun Monday around this time back in 2019. Four years later, there seem to be even more reasons to NOT be thankful. A worldwide pandemic. A tumultuous time afterward. Two ravaging wars that rage on with no end in sight. Given these calamities, would it not be a fool’s errand to give thanks for anything?

Although that appears self-evident, the truth is that we still have much to be thankful for. We’re alive to grieve those we lost to COVID, war, or a legion of others. We draw yet another breath even amidst the struggles of our day. Some of us witness the birth of a new life. Others savor novel opportunities. We have each other, and those important to us that are still with us.

All of these are reasons for Thanksgiving.

Witness the haijin that have done so:

Ice Fishing on Thanksgiving Eve

Kivalina, Alaska

On frozen snow’s rippled palette, a circle of Inupiat women stoop, then sit cross-legged on the ice. Recently arrived from the Lower 48, I know nothing of winter’s immense want. As our jigging unlocks tom-cod from the frozen lagoon the women sing century-old songs. Under the ice, hungry fish dart after silver lures. With an awl, a high school girl re-opens the hole as its wide eye freezes over and over. I wonder how quickly before the sea ice will fail, whales hunger, fish stocks decline. For now, an incoming tide rushes the fish through a channel that connects the Chukchi to the lagoon. Under a wan sun, we smack each cod onto the ice, where it flash freezes before the great heating that will kill us all.

the sharp stab of capture    hook throat eye

Contemporary Haibun Online 19:1 April 2023

Adelaide B. Shaw

Thanksgiving

Home from Sunday Mass where I received Communion. Climbing the back stairs to our flat, the fragrance hits me. Fried onions. Dad is at the stove making the pasta sauce for dinner. He takes a meatball, flattens it and cooks it along with the onions. I slice open one of the warm rolls I bought at the bakery near church and spread on some butter. It melts into a glistening pool. Dad tops this with onions and a smashed meatball. A little salt, lots of pepper and the top half of the roll

full of Grace
thanksgiving
in each bite

Contemporary Haibun Online 12:1 April 2016

Inspite of the doomsaying of the world around us, let us embrace what we’re grateful for. Let’s celebrate our own Thanksgiving! So write your haibun that references, or alludes to, Thanksgiving, however you see it.

New to haibun? The form consists of one to a few paragraphs of prose—usually written in the present tense—that evoke an experience and are often non-fictional/autobiographical. They may be preceded or followed by one or more haiku—nature-based, using a seasonal image—that complement without directly repeating what the prose stated.

New to dVerse? Here is what you do:

• Write a haibun that alludes to Thanksgiving.
• Post it on your personal site/blog.
• Include a link back to dVerse in your post.
• Copy your link onto the Mr. Linky.
• Remember to click the small checkbox about data protection.
• Read and comment on some of your fellow poets’ work.
• Like and leave a comment below if you choose to do so.
• Have fun!