Haibun Monday at dversepoets pub

January 9th is Haibun Monday at D’vesepoets pub.  I was asked to host this segment.    I have  been writing haibun, an ancient form of Japanese literature, usually a very few paragraphs followed by a relating haiku …for only  two months. I have a lot to learn about haibun.

 Kanzen Sakura (a marvelous poet on the staff there) introduced me to haibun through her own writings.  I had never tried this wonderful form.   Grace (also of dversepoets) will present a short explanation on haibun from previous postings.

The theme is “Childhood Experiences”, whether they be pleasurable or traumatic, but perhaps something that changed the course of your life or impacted you in some  unforgettable way.

The coincidences of life are strange.  My haibun is in part about my 13th birthday, and Monday, January 9th, is my 69th birthday.  I have never written or talked about the death of Honey, my first horse, and it took me 56 years to do so. But it feels right to do so at d’versepoets pub.

So, Haibun writers!  Post your childhood experiences and link your lives to others here!~ 

Dversepoets pub opens  Monday at 3pm EST for submissions. Check the website for directions on how to post there and leave a comment after you have linked.

Lady Nyo

–

Honey

 On the eve of my 13^th birthday, at almost midnight in the dead of winter, I went to the barn to check on my old mare, Honey. My father bought her two years before, knowing I was a child stuck in the countryside, with few friends. Honey was dead, the old Army blanket across her, and by the moonlight coming through the door, I could see her name embroidered on the side.

The next morning, standing at a bedroom window, dressed in my jodhpurs and a too-tight riding jacket, I watched a truck with a winch pull Honey by the neck onto the bed. Her frozen legs saluted the gunmetal sky. It started to snow, blurring what was happening outside. I could hear the motor of the winch and the thumps of Honey being rolled around.

That afternoon, on my birthday, I got my first period. My distressed mother tried to distract me with words ‘I was now a woman’. The pain in my groin was the only evidence to me I was alive.

 

The cold winter stars

Witness the grief of a child

Time does not erase

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2016

Tags: dversepoets.com, Haibun Mondays, January 9th