Haibun: Sport

This week’s haibun prompt was to write about sports. I am not a big fan of sports, so this was rather difficult to get inspiration for, but I like what came out of being open to this. Though I am not into team sports, I did karate for about 12 years when I was younger, and nowadays I really like activities such as yoga and hiking.

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My brothers and I started doing karate when we were young, 8 and 12 years old. I often enjoyed class but didn’t think I was following my passions, since, from the beginning, I wanted to take dance. However, my brothers liked karate, so — two against one — I was outvoted. In my teenage years, karate became a place of self-criticism for me, yet I couldn’t bear to leave. At the ages of 19 and 20, with an eating disorder developing, over-exercising became a snare to me. Finally, I had no choice but to give up karate and start fighting the scariest and strongest enemy I’d ever encountered: Monsters in my own mind. And I’m still fighting but am training and gaining strength every day.

 

Summer turns to fall,

Black belt becomes a novice,

New, personal strength.

Kintsugi: A Haibun

This week’s Haibun Monday challenge on DVerse is about Kintsugi, the Japanese art of taking the broken pieces of something and putting it back together by adding gold lacquer, creating a work of art more beautiful than before. This haibun is based on a true and fairly recent happening in my life. I almost didn’t write it but am glad that I did.

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While trying to wake myself up with some coffee, filling the reservoir with water, I knock off a glass candle holder from it’s perch on the mahogany end table. I can see it falling, hear it clatter as it reaches the tile floor, all the pieces unevenly breaking and scattering, as from a fearsome predator. I stand still and silent for a moment. I yell for help but there is no one here. Timidly I tip-toe over the top of all these pieces and grab the vacuum, which sucks up all the tiny pieces, all the shards of what once was beautiful and useful, but was something I never paid much attention to, ungrateful, until the unused candle holder flung itself to the floor.

I wonder, even then, if there was a use for all the pieces, if they needed to be cast into oblivion​, or if, like Humpty Dumpty and the king’s men, nothing could put them together again.

No longer springtime,

But summer of my life: I

Treasure all pieces.

Favorite Breakfast: Haibun

This week’s “Haibun Monday” is about cooking and a recipe. I did not see the prompt until this morning so was inspired by my breakfast. This was fun to write and a little bit of a challenge to be as descriptive as possible, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

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My favorite breakfast: I open a fresh container of plain, Greek yogurt and spoon it into a hand-painted, ceramic bowl. The pure white of the yogurt stands out next to the brown bowl with the tan trim and a pink heart painted on the side. I slice with a butter knife a juicy pear, yellow with ripeness, and place it on a dainty white saucer. I pour crunchy bran cereal into the creamy yogurt (sometimes I feel like an elderly person in a young person’s body). Don’t forget the bitter and delicious black coffee!

 

Cold-winter yogurt,

Spring pears, hot-summer coffee:

Fall in love with it.

Fear: A Haibun

This week, on DVerse Poets, one challenge was to write a haibun about fear. What has frightened you in the past or still frightens you? A quote about fear that I related to from the other blog post is “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” (T.S. Eliot). What I fear most may be impermanence, the way that things are always changing. Death does not scare me, but sometimes life does because I want to keep things as they are, even though, as they change, they have the potential to improve.

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I fear being disconnected. I fear losing friendships, as tie goes by and people naturally drift apart. It is painful that people who were once an important part of my life barely talk with me anymore. Especially as some of my friends at college prepare to graduate, while I am staying behind, it is hard to accept that the same thing may happen with them. It’s no one’s fault. It just is. That is the most frightening part. I want these people to know how much they mean to me. I do not want to lose them. Please do not become a ghost, a mere memory, words on the once-blank pages of my journal.

 

Let our friendship not

Evaporate into air,

Like a brief spring rain.

Crossing

National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) starts tomorrow! Today’s “early bird prompt” was to write a haibun, which starts with a few sentences and ends in a haiku. I tried to write a few of these today, and this one is my best attempt. It was inspired by the people I saw while walking to work this afternoon. I definitely had fun with this!

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A mother carries her young son as they cross a busy street. The asphalt under their feet is hard, and cars could unexpectedly speed. As they cross, she carries him onto the sidewalk. Then she sets him down gently, trusting his own learned capability.

You cannot carry

Your young son forever, though

You yearn for safety.