Haibun - Sixty Years' Passing

Sixty Years' Passing

On the loading ramp of a
Berlin train station there
are candles in the snow.
The railway tracks at Auschwitz
have parallel lines of flame.

In my early childhood, I knew
old men and women with
numbers on their forearms.
Their numbers have dwindled.
The German President was silent.

winter fog --
the stillness of barbed wire
the absence of Japan

Haibun - Ave Maria

Ave Maria

A plaster Madonna - the feel of bleached bones.
i dip the brush, stroke her outer garments and
eyes cerulean blue. For her inner garment and lips,
an almost mauve pink... as if she had been left
without a breath. i leave her flesh, her beckoning
hands unpainted. at her feet, i paint blood red roses.
then, i glue a piece of wood in her belly and hammer
a nail in her womb, hang an oval mirror and place
her facing west.

centre of the sun --
a golden halo
surrounds your face

Haibun - Songs in the Key of Love

Songs in the Key of Love

it had been over three years since i had been
to our country house in New England. my aunt
Leslie had been with us, before we knew about
the lung cancer that would spread to her brain.
as i drove along the winding road to pine lane,
i could hear again her voice filled with anguish,
"hortensia please, please tell me about death"
and my refusal unlike the others, to lie. "i don't
know. i only know that i have you in my heart
always." "thank you" she said and lapsed into a
coma that night, dying the next day. turning into
our driveway, i caught the sun glinting off the two
sets of windchimes we had both bought my mother.
they were still hanging on the apple tree. although
we hadn't known that the other was bringing them,
we both chose windchimes with the same notes.

sunlight through tears --
small breezes carry songs
through green leaves