Tags

, ,

The last full week of November has begun. Leaves have fallen, as days have shortened. Although the United States celebrates Thanksgiving this Thursday, late November also marks a time of death. Harvests done, festivals over: fallow fields and naked boughs remind us of our own end. & yet, as nights grow longer, soon will come the time when days lengthen, trees blossom, and life renews. Change happens.

Hello, poets, and welcome to another edition of Haibun Monday, where we practice Basho’s hybrid form, blending prose and haiku. Today, let’s talk about transformation.

The only constant is change. We are not the babies we were when we entered this world, any more than we are the corpses we will be when we leave it. Even as the Northern Hemisphere braces for winter, the Southern Hemisphere celebrates the coming of another Summer. We live in a state of constant flux, and any permanence we cling to is our own “private Idaho,” a delightful illusion, soon to shatter.

Coincidentally, the birds most evident in New York’s backyard at this time of year, the ravens and crows, are both symbols of transformation. Often associated with battlefields and death, these Corvids are also symbols of insight and wisdom (think of Odin’s ravens). & what better wisdom can we have than insight into the constant transformation that is our life?

Consider how transformation inspired these poets:

Transformation

I observe the peaceful snow flurries dancing on the Sasanquas. Vibrant arrays of white, cream, and salmon tones are fading into subtle and muted colors. The purple veins that lace my bust are also starting to dwindle and recede into streaks of pale blue. The shields encircling my nipples have altered from soft pink to a bellicose darkness that makes them appear even more pronounced. My tender flesh swells like the blossoms outside my window. The joys and pains of motherhood.

unfolding life
the blending hues
on natures palette

Fanny Budan
Newberg, Oregon, USA

Courtesy of Drifting Sands,  Issue 12, January 2022

Haibun on the High Bun

Beside her in the bathroom mirror before school, I watch the girl prepare herself for the world. One minute still goofy and young—eyes bright, cheeks child-plump, teeth with their scalloped bottoms, and all those freckles—then everything shifts as she twists and spins her hair, lifting it to chignon. So self-assured, as if the gesture were always hers, and she never sat on the floor at my feet while I unsnarled and brushed despite protest, pigtailed and ponytailed, learned to braid and style on demand. Now, in one smooth, solitary motion, she slides a hair tie from her wrist where it hangs like a jeweled bangle and secures this perfect bun herself, her transformation as sudden and dramatic as in the stories she used to beg me to read: sparkling wand, tulle and glitter, fairy godmother. No princess here, just a very real girl covering her acne, glossing her lips, pulling out a few casual strands of hair to trail down the long arc of her neck, which descends from fresh-pierced lobes to shadows cupped in collar bones. What grace she is, this momentary woman, who will soon be the only version of the girl I know.

Not chameleon, not
hummingbird though she changes,
flits about, becomes new.

Amanda Moore, San Francisco, California, USA

Courtesy of Catapult, December 22, 2021

Maeve O’Sullivan

Transformation

Our big sister Jean always has a project on the go. This summer she is presiding over the dining-room, converted into an arts and crafts studio. She’s running workshops for small groups of bored schoolchildren on holidays, to help pay for an open-ended trip to the U.S. She has done a deal with Mum, who is allowing Jean to host them in the house, as long as she lets us three young ones sit in. Wearing multi-coloured bell-bottoms, a cheesecloth blouse and her signature red Afro hairstyle, Jean offers clear instructions and occasional praise. We do the messier work in the back garden, outside the French windows, our yellow rubber gloves darkening in the basins. We learn how to tie-dye white tee-shirts using elastic bands; how to create interesting shapes with halved potatoes dipped in paint; how to experiment with marbling, and how to make small artworks on cotton squares using a series of different coloured dyes, with the application of hot wax in between the dyeing. She tells us that this ancient technique has roots in Egypt, where a wax-covered cloth was found in a 5th Century Pharoah’s tomb.

after her death
I frame my sister’s gift:
a red and green batik

Courtesy of Contemporary Haibun Online, 21.3

Today, let’s bear witness to the power of transformation. Write your haibun about, or alluding to, transformation, however you perceive 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 references transformation.
  • 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!