This

There is nothing on this path to hold onto. Nothing to commit to heart or memory. One hand on the smooth bark of a young poplar stretching skyward, roots crawling deep down, creature of darkness and light. Forest of fallen ancients at my feet, a moss blanket of moist promise. Nothing dies here. Nothing lasts.

My mother forgets
that I am her son; holding
hands by the window.

…

For dVerse Haibun Monday. Alluding to memory.

Author: chrisbkm

Chris Morrison was born on the north shore of Lake Superior and currently lives within moments of the Atlantic in Nova Scotia, Canada.

28 thoughts on “This”

  2. Oh how I love the idea of trees as creatures of darkness and light, maybe that’s what draws me to them. Your haibun is vivid, beautiful, and achingly poignant in its acceptance.

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    1. Thanks Lisa! I think we may all be creatures of darkness and light. I have a particular love of winter trees and thinking about the slow, insistent rivers of life flowing under their bark, through the frozen earth and into their mighty and gentle root systems.

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    1. Thanks Lynne! The haiku came as a surprise to me too. I had written a number that I felt fit, but the problem was, they seemed to fit too neatly. Too predictably. Finally, I scrapped the entire direction I was going and walked away. About an hour later, this one appeared from nowhere.

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      1. I love that! Yes, walking away is sometimes the answer. The resultant haiku is so powerful, laid beside the first words/thoughts but coming after – the image we’re left with comes right into my body. You are so gifted!

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  6. “Nothing dies here. Nothing lasts.” These two lines together are perfect. For me, really sums up our predicament. This is all wonderful. I also really like the first two sentences. And then the poignant haiku at the end. Wow.

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  10. Such a depth of sadness in all of these lines. The forest of fallen ancients connecting Mother and Son, holding hands by the window. Poignant, tender, difficult to write and yet the the moss blanket of promise shows something is worth holding on to.

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    1. Thanks very much for your comment Teri. While the poem is sad, in the writing there is also acceptance, awe and wonder of life. Without the haiku, the prose component can be read very differently I think. The haiku came to me as a very stark and human truth that in ways transcended the ideas of the prose with the facts of being human. It put an holistic concept into perspective. Something like that…

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  11. A refreshing take on haibun, where usually one is too much the part of the other. Though we are in a winter vein, the contrast between prose and poem are startling and true. Complementary but not rhyming.

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  12. The stretching, the reaching, the yearning – this demanded multiple readings. The legacy that lives on in the despair of what does not die in the face of death. I spent some of today reading Brodsky’s “On Grief and Reason” re: Frost and this seemed to tumble into that so well. Excellent.

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    1. Thanks for this! Very cool that it could find a spot and slip into some fascinating reading you were doing. I love the degree to which so much in life is interwoven.

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