This is a combination of pieces for my Postmodernism course in college — the haiku below was written first, and we later wrote a haibun to accompany it. The haibun is a free-form that expands on the ambiguity of the haiku, and being a fan of prose-poetry, I used prose for both of these haibun.
september 21st
Wind chimes shiver—
Laughter carrying
Summer’s breath over
Late September, it is evening, and the neighborhood kids laugh indoors. The sun sets just before seven. There are pictures from summer still dark and undeveloped in canisters on every mantle, and wicker furniture still sits on covered porches. Lemonade rings, spared by thunderstorms, linger on faded wood, dry but syrupy. Voices shuffle through lit windows, open and forgotten. A cool breeze sounds a dangling wind chime. Fall starts tomorrow.
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whirlwind hill
Ribbon on a tree
Pelting rain ages
Mistakes made
There is an oak tree on a hilly road in rural Connecticut. It is not very tall, and only about three or four feet in diameter. It is not a tree you would notice – it rises on a short stretch between the bottom of one steep hill and the beginning of another. There was a morning when flowers, fabrics and signs of many colors surrounded this tree, and for a while, people saw it. It can get uncommonly windy here, and it rained a lot that summer. Fewer signs, fewer flowers, fewer ribbons. Sometimes I drive by and something colorful is there. I’m not sure how long it has been, but I’m sure someone does.