Haibun Selection

WHR August 2011

Haibun Selection

birds’ sense of humor

by izak bouwer

I was present at the very moment, I believe, that a pair of American redstarts

arrived back from their winter quarters to the tree beside our house where

they had nested the year before. The old nest was still there, a shabby

wicker basket among the young leaves of spring. Almost immediately, the

female flew over to sit again on her old nest. They momentarily looked at

each other, and I witnessed what I can only describe as an exchange of mirth

between them, their eyes twinkling brightly. She then flew up again, leaving

me to marvel at what I have seen. In the words of William Blake: “How do you

know but every bird that cuts the airy way, is [not] an immense world of

delight closed by your senses five?”

female redstart

on last year¹s nest -

their twinkling eyes

Flying with sparrows

By Claire Gardien

Long days of June… Long days of summer school holidays… Nature unfolds its peak season of warmth on trees and flowers. Chicks fly away of and off their nests. Day after day, the smooth warm air greets them in their ascent towards new spheres of life.

elevation -

leading to self-reliance

the fam* flight

They lift off and merge with the air. They tweet, speak out their joy, their glee. Day after day, they fly until ecstatic heights. It’s a keen relish to watch their apprenticeship into ever higher flights. Eight… nine years old…

/I feel suspended to their inner bliss/

Mom and Dad sit side by side on branches and crave after this span of nests’ life. Maternity is a tough labor though, feeding them with little worms, attending to their endurance. Thirsty, though.

/looking for water their bated breath/

I wander in the lush garden and each instant is an inner joy of floating in a world of sweetness. Now watching my image on the tank’s water, spread wings beneath almost touch my face. I’m sure it’s a mother bird. Mom has told me, “When you sleep the night with me, take care of my varicose veins”.

/“Blood is life”, you know. /

I get frightened as I take the small ball of feathers out of the water. I cautiously spread the feathers apart and prick the little body with one of my mom’s sewing needles.

pricking -

deep in the purple belly

then, in the neck

/not a single drop of blood/

In the same quest to save one of them, the sparrows fly around me, swoop down, chirp, worrying about what I am doing.

deeper in the flesh –

the beak of mother bird

full of cherry pulp

What was-I hoping for? Are-they varicose veins, too?

/birds’ life is cherry juice/

What’s happening? Nature is tough… an unmoving world of perfection laughs at my child’s sorrows. Mom had told me, “Blood is life, don’t misunderstand, though; if it runs out, it means life”.

However, it didn’t run out.

I go wandering in the garden, heart wrenched.

/Cutting a dandelion stem the sap surges/

If ever...

laying it down on a lettuce leaf

in the garden bin

tomorrow morning

I’ll wake up early –

sparrows’ tweets

Hospice Patient

By Stephen W. Leslie

When I entered his room his face lit up with a smile. I pulled up a chair and he pulled out photos of himself in his 20’s, with his muscular body, black hair greased and slicked back which was stylish in the1940’s. He found a snapshot of his wife in her 20’s, a slender, attractive, dancer. He talked about finding a job when he got out of the army, commuting to New Jersey, and some of the jerks he had as bosses. We would talk for hours. Although he never mentioned it, I wondered if he was lonely. Sometimes he would wince and tears would come to his eyes from the pain in his knees. He could barely walk and was mostly confined to his armchair. There was nothing I could do to help ease his pain; he was not even my patient. She was.

Sitting beside him

Eyes vacant and glassy

Alzheimers

Brigid: A Japanese Haibun

By Stephen W. Leslie

My daughter, Brigid was a wild teenager. She was bold, brassy and completely fearless. She was also stunningly beautiful with long blond hair and dark brown eyes. She was extremely fit being a gymnast. In high school the boys would start calling our house at 3:15 pm and call until 2 am. The only way we could eat dinner or sleep was to disconnect the phone. She drove her mother, Jean, crazy. They would have heated arguments every week about boys, dating, her curfew hours, and her allowance. Brigid was very defiant. When Jean would become enraged, which was often, she would go out and dig in the flower garden.

Another fight

Outside the window

Dirt flying

One time we decided to go on vacation leaving my youngest son, Sam and Brigid under the care of my brother, Lee. We thought everything would be ok with him there and even called often to check in. Lee did not want to alarm us and was constantly reassuring until we got home. While we were gone Brigid got a spring break job house sitting for a neighbor.

The neighbor’s house

A wild block party

Beer soaked carpet

The worst incident happened when Brigid was a high school senior. Without our knowledge Brigid and two girlfriends rented a motel room for a party. When the party was underway and packed with high school kids, a gang of black hoodlums from Baltimore barged in. One of the high school athletes attempted to block the door and was stabbed. The police arrive and everyone was held in jail overnight, including my daughter. At 3 am a police officer knocked on our front door and informed me of the stabbing and my daughter’s temporary incarceration. Standing at the door in my sleepy haze I was suddenly aware that I was wearing raggedy old pajamas, worn and riddled with holes. The police office stared at my strange outfit.

Christmas morning

My daughter’s present

New pajamas

Final Light

By Marian Olson

Attached to life support seemed impossible to think of, but there he was. The man who took me on my first Ferris wheel ride, the one who preferred beer in a glass mug with a raw egg dropped inside; the one who showed up at our door on Christmas Eve, blue eyes sparkling like Santa Claus, with a bundle of gifts; the man children trailed because they loved being near him; the man who could throw me over the apartment building where I lived and be there to catch me—yes, he could; the man who served church and community through the YMCA. As family and friends died one by one, he lived on and on to finally die alone in the ICU room, the man I called Daddy.

final light

and no clouds left

to hold it

A Haibun

By Zinovy Vayman

(On May 4, 2011 the Confederation House at Yemin Moshe, Jerusalem featured "Love Poems of Yehuda Amichai. I failed to attend the event.)

“Open Close Open”

This is the Amichai's poetry book title. The author fashions a “Kabbalistic” construct of Prebirth, Life and Afterlife. Prebirth and afterlife are full of opportunities and thus open.

I disagree.

Before birth everything is closed !

This world and our births are accidents.

During our lifetimes everything is open.

More than that, as Kira Sapguir of Moscow and Paris puts it, "While we are alive we are immortal."

After death everything is closed. Forever and ever. As if we have never lived at all.

No loopholes, Yehuda !

Your writings are lingering a bit, Yehuda, because people are merciful.

For a while.

Galilee evening

the minaret's blue light

turns emerald green

Better To Stay in the Past

By Zinovy Vayman

Risto Santala from Finland wrote a book about St Paul—“The Man and the Teacher in the Light of Jewish Sources.” (I read it in Beit Skandinavia—a Norwegian enclave at the foot of Mount Carmel in Palestine. Brevick was already planning his grandiose attack.)

The life of a hyperactive Jewish citizen of Rome is given in all its splendor. Shakespearean intrigues are played out. The hidden springboard of passions is exposed. The politics is remarkably the same as today.

I was hunting, however, for aphorisms and flights of fancy. I found some.

“As children we 'die' for our parents.

The process of passing creates life.

A negation of death appears to be the negation of life.

Christ conquered death for us, or instead of us.

'For me life is Jesus and death is an acquisition.'

Phlp 1:21.”

Wait a minute. What acquisition? On the contrary, total loss and oblivion...

Faith does create wonders and miracles. Yet, in my humble opinion, death is not “conquered” at all. But Mr Santala is upbeat: “We do not lose our agility, in spite of the fact that our outer human body is perishing since our inner human being is rejuvenating day in and day out.”

Hm, our bodies may be rejewvenating but they are not made youthful again. The older Christians get the more they look Jewish.

The learned Finn Risto Santala speaks and wrtes Hebrew, “Megala tapeah mastir tfahaim.”

(“If somebody opens its palm, then he hides two palms.”)

Risto cites Ben Gurion as saying that Corinthians 13 is a pearl of the Jewish literature.

Aha, bridges to modern times are starting to appear. The book is about the greatest empire which has happened to be continued by the superior Germanic mind. Up to this hour.

Our Germanized author suddenly unleashes his anger at the modern State of Israel where “religion is not separated from the state, where the religious minority plays a police role and—in the process—loses respect of unobservant masses.”

(My pious landlady quips, “In Safed, even atheists behave themselves as believers.” )

I see nothing wrong in pushing conformity on people at the market of religions. It reminds me the Soviet Union where the censorship created great writers suffering under merciless taboos.

Our writer opines, “ 'American Judahites' appear to be the carriers of aggressive and non-compromising ideas towards Palestinian Arabs but local Jews in Palestine do not agree with Americans.”

This remark is utterly wrong. There is a certain percentage of religious and secular Israeli Jews who do not favor Arabs. As for American Jews, just a tiny percentage cares about the Middle East and its travails.

Risto compares St Paul bringing his reformed Judaism to convert Hellenized Jews and Greeks to the modern effigy of Meir Kahane becoming... a Christian. It does not stand scrutiny, though. Rabbi Kahane—in his young years in America—his Roman Empire— was in love with a Christian woman but he made a transition to the bravest form of Judaism as he refashioned his beliefs. Rabbi Kahane's almost futile attempts were a far cry from St Paul's charisma and life work.

We might say that Risto Santala's inspired rendering of the missionary work and meanderings of St Paul reads smoothly but his forays into the present drama are premature.

death rehearsal:

eternal darkness spreads

at the speed of light

Droning

By Aju Mukhopadhyay-Pondicherry

Of our many pets, guests and visitors, latest are the crickets. Droning of crickets we often hear, especially in the evenings in countryside. But suddenly in the warm spring in our town some crickets have taken shelter in our bathroom, toilet and storerooms, places less frequented by humans.

Just as the darkness falls they begin droning in unison. It goes on till morning. As I enter their rooms and ask, “Oh, who’s making so loud calls?” They pause for some time to resume after a while. I have seen two of them in action: mouths are shut but their rear wings flutter rhythmically with the drone.

beginning of spring-

rangoon creeper shamelessly blooms

day in day out