Haibun

Written by RitaC on September 10th, 2010

Haibun is a relatively short, prose poem from under 100 words to 200 or 300, ending with a haiku. A longer haibun may have haiku interspersed in the prose.

Late Summer: A Morning Walk
Two butterflies, a yellow and black Tiger Swallowtail, the other, a black edged in blue Black Swallowtail, flutter, hover, then settle on purple thistle. A fuzzy, ghost caterpillar navigates a route. Grasshoppers miscalculate–do they?–landing on my chest in a crossfire. Shiny, brown beetles scuttle across the path. A slow cricket walks toward the grass. Small dark moths, prolific and busy, sip on lavender sage flowers. This population of insects comes with the cooling of summer. A cascade of birdsong spills from trees thick with late-summer leaves splashed with red and yellow. A walnut tree heavy with nuts in green cases, hang, waiting to ripen and drop. A near tree branch supports a hanging nest woven by a hummingbird, home to spring eggs and chicks, now empty. The cooling that comes this time of year subtly subtracts light from each day. Still, the quotidian sun rises, orange and full above the horizon spilling daylight over the land.

Holy beams, a sky-

scape aureole of pastels,

glow with morning light.

For more information on this or other forms of Japanese poems, visit Haiku Society of America at http://www.hsa-haiku.org/.