Here, in this remote, twisted canyon, countless generations of aboriginal puebloan peoples lived. One thousand years ago, they faced a 100-year drought, and lost out to it. It’s likely that some farmers became nomads, raiding the produce of others who had struggled on; likely there were skirmishes in which one family battled another for survival.
scattered pot shards
all that remains of a
nameless family
I rest in an alcove’s shade near crumbling walls of stone and mud located high on a sandstone cliff. Ghostlike handprints are painted above the doorway. Below is the wash whose intermittent waters fed their small plot. Where corn and squash once grew, there’s nothing but cactus.
I listen to the wind whispering, imagine it’s them speaking of their failing crops while sharing a scant evening meal.
I don’t know who these tears are for.
sheltering in
the broken walls
a whiptail lizard
Notes: Published in Haibun Today 5:4 December 2011
This haibun was inspired by the chinese poet Du Fu’s “Days End”. I used his simple structure and put in my on theme related to my visits to the (sometimes intact) ruins left by the ancestral puebloans of the four-corners region of the United States.
Ray Rasmussen: All Things Haibun Blog 