HOME - a haibun

memories (and prospects) set in the beautiful garden which characterised my childhood

I (newborn)

Droplets of light splash my delicate eyes

As I reveal their tender bronze to the sky.

Petals of bright coral and white

Rain on the soft, diaphanous silk

Which tangles across my minute head

And falls upon her breast

As she lulls me into a dream

And I close my eyes.

Flowers and fairies, and roses

and cherries

dress her - her words taste like tea.

Daisies spot the light cotton cloth

And the grass,

The ground, beneath her feet.

II (child)

Fresh morning dew sits on the back of my neck,

Aeolus blows and scatters my golden threads as I run.

Carmine leaves are cascades of summer that ends

And I jump through bouquets of crisp, elder oak.

Robins whistle and cheer

And whoosh to the stars,

Until all I see of them is memory

And trifling fragments of the life they left behind.

He smiles and dimples giggle on his plump cheeks,

Eyes sparkle of rainbows and youth;

His sister waits for us perched on the tree -

Pink magnolia blooms in the spring.   

III (adolescent)

Rivulets of memories flow along the pleats in the dry earth,

And I trace my wet finger through time.

Skulls of camelia and rose scatter the soft emerald grass;

Dim light shines on their stems,

Empty with grief and neglection and age.

Early ripe cherries dangle in lavishing, exquisite batches,

Soothing together the branches in red -

But feel alone.

I bite into the sweet tang of their foreign blood

And swirl into a chasm of past,

The fusion of visions from my fresh, faerie youth

Taste like joy and chlorophyll leaves,

Smelling of black currant, lime.

I hear the purring of gray cats sleeping on a wooden bench,

And breathe in white musk,

Scents of sheets no longer mine.

IV (adult)

Dandelions dance to the notes of the wind

Behind the glass frame of my kitchen window.

The kettle whistles,

The water boils,

And the teabags quiver

Excited as I pour warmth upon them.

Outside,

We drink, we eat, we smile, we talk, we laugh,

His grin still true, her eyes the same -

They shine with light and love.

They go, I stay,

Caressing the spine of a leather coated book:

Poems and stories and thousands of worlds

Enclosed between tea-stained pages of wood.

I look down and below me:

The ground,

Flowers adorn it once again

And their juice gives honey to the bees and my bread.

๕ (elder)

Beams of amber warmth

Pierce my bronze, rusty eyes

As I squint under the eternal light.

Her small, minuscule, hands braid my silver threads

And intertwine flowers and ladybirds

Above my tired gaze,

While the others swing along the tree’s strong arms.

My wrinkled fingers lay upon her narrow lap,

Dressed in grass and ginger fur,

And they twinkle -

Ametyst shines when splashed in lemon starlight.

I breathe and taste peach,

Clean sheets of white musk and youth

Adorn her scent with melancholy.

I smile as in her I sense a trace of blooming me.