Haibun
Haibun is a Japanese genre combining poetic prose with embedded haiku. I found in it a sort of bridge between East and West, now and then, connecting my appreciation for the classical Asian sensibility and the part of my heritage that is Native American.SPIRIT GUIDE
The days growing shorter now I awaken before dawn, and only a little early light is possible this morning, leaning where fog and dew-drench envelop the near pines, all sense of distance foreshortened into a nearness of emptiness that is something like looking down into a deep canyon, a long moment that is almost vertigo, a fear of falling.
pines in fog
silence and stillness
even i'm not here
and then I am fully present in what I cannot see but know is the cry of an eagle, who has never come in the fall but every spring stays for an hour, sitting in a low bough of the same oak, the nexus of a shared passage between seasons, I staying and the eagle going on to the wooded hills above the river.
stories here still told
in their old language
wind in river pines
A thousand years ago my ancestors made their religion of the eagles' nesting ground that was ancient even then, painting on the steep bluffs their Piasa Bird. And perhaps what I hear now is not just the voice of an eagle but the story of a people and the bird who inspired their beliefs and shaped their spirituality, going on across all those years like the light of a star no longer there, the endless retelling becoming part of my own story.
woods and river path
following the old ways
leaving no footprints
Poetry by countryfog
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Written on 2014-12-07 at 16:11
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