Haibun

WHR June 2016

Haibun

Flat Line

Brijesh Raj

The garnets around her equally flawless neck are riveting, their every facet winking under the hospital lights. I wish I could have their place. Be shown off, nestled in her dress front. Caressed absently by those long, slender fingers.

She likes red…a bit too much. As do I.

scalpel cut

my eyes

welling

Gray Fleece Hoodie

Tricia Knoll

That’s what this overcast April afternoon feels like. I thought I’d be warm enough, and I shivered. The zipper’s teeth didn’t bite each other right. I want blueberries - they are only tight buds. The Mason bees hatched out too early to pollinate the flowers. My side seams have no pockets to squirrel away my fists.

no more snow

of plum blossoms

wrinkled daffodils

Marbled Illusion in Moonlit Night

Aju Mukhopadhyay

While at Jabalpur I sailed in a boat with some others in the river Narmada for the Bhedghat, at a distance of some 25 km from Jabalpur. Marble rocks on both sides of the river flow with it in zigzag way almost ending and beginning again. While passing through the river with marble rocks of different hues on both sides of it seems as if the river ends its journey between the rows of rocks, but no! As you come very near the end it gives way opening to a new galaxy with dazzling stars and bright round moon overhead illuminating the river path below with rows of rocks as before. Going near the end turning to a new track; how many souls before me have witnessed it! I repeat them to give way to others who come along following me!

water knows

to move forward

obstacles giving it chance

During the midday parts of the rocks dazzle and at night, specially full moon night, the soothing white rays of the moon-disc and stars create a mesmerizing scene over the marbles whitening the rocks creating a contrast with the darkish flow of water below. The marriage between the heavenly rays and the white marbles create a kind of white illusion between the rocky reality with flashing water body and the beaming moon in vast vast sky. The most thrilling part of it was when I hid myself behind the rocks, coming out from the boat during a small halt and moved freely alone with some rodents and maybe, one or two hares around. No man dared to accompany me.

It falls from a flat level

sparkling and sprinkling-

a mini Niagara

Lotus Fragrance

Entering ISRO or Indian Space Research Organization at Thumba near Thiruvanthapuram, Kerala, for a visit as arranged by the organizers of a poetry festival, we visited their museum and beheld the electronic display of space through the glass windows with the other wonderments displayed. We talked to the curator and others. We could see and realize the march of human progress through Science and Technology; Indian progress in space technology in particular.

everything dazzles

as we enter into an unknown domain

only to fizzle out soon

Feeling pride for man, country and the march of science we came out but suddenly remembered that nothing impressed me like the one I saw just after entering the compound as it remained with me when we came out of the main gate at last. The boisterous march of human progress continues through the modern pages of history but a flower like lotus remains in our psyche from time immemorial.

between

the real and the unreal

lies the choice

At the wall of the old church converted to museum house at the ground level, I remembered that there is a small cemented enclosure with water and mud in it. Out of it came the stems of few pink lotuses. Two buds and a blossom were undulating in the air; perhaps unnoticed by many. They adorn the entrance. Viewing and knowing all glories of science when I came out of the Space Research organization only mud and water remained with me and the mud-born lotus at the centre of them with its fragrance.

water splashed inside

swishing the edge of the boat-

dark green lotus leaves, close.

Venelina Petkova

Roses are fading, and still the weather is too cool, leaves tremble and twist to all sides. What a contrast - the blossoms in yellow, red, pink, even purple, the sky - grey and cloudy, torn by wind. No one sits on a bench, in spite of the aroma in the air – greenish, wet earth, blossoms overblown, grey asphalt paving, rusty iron. No children’s laughter, no bicycles passing by, no street musicians playing, no one lights a cigarette. Nothing happens; just the wind lowers the temperatures.

a dried rose leaf

between the diary's pages

still keeping the color

Riverside Campground in Mid-August

Amy Baskin

The Head of the Metolius offers fresh, chilled water but its flow is not enough to wash away the curtain of burnt sagebrush and tribal timber hanging in the air between Green Ridge Ponderosas and Lodgepole Pines on Seekseekqua. Ash insulates like snowfall, silencing birds and sunsets. There will be no campfires this evening, only thoughts and prayers for Warm Springs.

a chipmunk skitters

slower in oven dry heat

the butte hides in smoke