Category: haibun

Red Licorice

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 1 Comment

. . .  if they fail to express what is in their own minds,
what is the use, no matter how many poems they compose!
~ Ryokan

The doorbell rings. On the porch, standing in a downpour, is a very wet girl in baggy clothes.  Her hair is mouse-brown with red and green streaks, her face festooned with shiny bits of metal and orange lipstick and an alarming red rash.

She can’t be selling Girl Guide cookies. What’s this about?

“Yes,” I say.

“Hi, I’m Lisa, Janey’s friend. Is she home?” She leans in trying to peek around me.

Janey’s friend, uh oh! Why is she here?

Janey rushes up to the door. “Dad, this is Lisa. She’s the one I told you about.” Her voice lowers. “You know . . . from rehab.”

Lisa? Maybe late teens? Maybe Crystal Meth? Was she Janey’s special friend who shared red licorice and TV in rehab?

“Hi Lisa, come in,” I say with little enthusiasm.

Head down, Lisa enters, mumbles “thanks.”

Janey jumps in again: “Dad, I said she could come over. She needs to get away from her boyfriend, like I needed to, you know, get away from Johnie, so I could get clean.”

Just a boyfriend? maybe a pimp? a drug dealer? Violent? Will he show up here looking for her? Damnit! Janey promised to stay away from those street kids.

Reading my silence as leading to a “no”,  Janey jumps in again: “Dad, Lisa’s got nowhere to go. Can’t we help her?” said in the same wheedling voice she had used for getting a second bedtime story.

For how long? What about her parents? Why not rehab? Or a shelter? And what are those red spots? Hives? Measles?

“Lisa, Tha’s quite a rash, you have,” I say. Are you feeling okay?”

Janey says: “Dad, they’re just Speed bumps, meth does that,” she explains, with the same authority as when she identifies the birds that come to the feeder she put up in our backyard, trying to help them through the winter.

Janey has always been a rescuer. I’ve encouraged her, thinking that if she cares for something or someone else, maybe she’ll begin to care for herself. Maybe this is an opportunity?

pouring rain,
and also pouring in
so many maybes and what-ifs.
yet has a bit of hope
also seeped in?

who said,
“hope is a thing with feathers
that perches in the soul?”
perhaps someone, like me
who needs to hope again.

“I was just fixing dinner,” I say to them.  “Janey, why not take Lisa to your room and get her some dry clothes and then let’s sit down, have dinner and talk.”

Much later, after many conditions stipulated and seemingly agreed to, we’ve gone to a store where the girls bought the necessities: hair and tooth brushes, underwear, tops and pants. And that night, they retreat to the TV room, and I give them the bag of red licorice I bought for them while they were shopping.

just two girls,
yet so much more,
sunk deep in the sofa
giggling while watching TV
and sharing red licorice

a morning walk
with the black dog.
maybe the spring flowers are up,
Dare I hope for
the flash of a yellow warbler?

About the Author

Ray Rasmussen

Ray Rasmussen resides in Edmonton and Halton Hills, Canada. His haibun, haiga, haiku and articles have appeared in the major print and online haiku journals and anthologies.

A Monkish Guy’s Post-Divorce Journey

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 3 Comments

Haibun by Ray Rasmussen with poems by Basho

courtesan and monk,
we sleep under one roof together,
moon in a field of clover
~ Basho

Outside, apple blossoms glow in the dusk. She lies on her side, head propped up on a pillow, her eyes telling me that something important is coming, my eyes taking in the candlelight falling on her breasts.

“I need to know more about you,” she says.

“Do you mean about me joking that I’m a monk?”

“Yes, because right now you don’t seem very much like a monk.” She glances at my hand wandering slowly along the curve of her hip.

“You’re thinking about Christian monks, the ones who lived in dank cells, ate lentils and hard bread, the ones who whipped themselves. Think instead of Basho, the Japanese monk who traveled extensively, shared his poetry with peasants and samurai nobles, loved flowers, enjoyed the company of women, the warmth of taverns. Think more of a European troubadour with haiku as his song.”

I'm a wanderer
so let that be my name—
the first winter rain
~ Basho

“Does this mean that I’m just someone who happens to sleep with you?”

“No, but I’ve been a partner all of my life and for now I need not to be.”

“So what am I?” she asks. “I don’t know how to tell my friends whatever it is we’re doing. It feels like more than dating or having sex and it’s not friendship because I don’t sleep with my friends.”

how reluctantly
the bee emerges from deep
within the peony
~ Basho

“Can’t we simply enjoy what we have,” I reply.

“I’m reluctant to give up the feel of your skin against mine, but I’ll have to think about this.” She pecks a kiss, dresses and leaves.

A week later her note arrives: “I have such good memories of our moments together. It’s a gift to desire and be desired, but we need such different things.”

winter seclusion—
sitting propped against
the same worn post
~ Basho

~ end ~

Author’s comments:

This haibun is my text intertwined with translations of Basho’s haiku and headed by Toshimine’s artwork. It was first published in the journal Simply Haiku.

I thought of this piece as a conversation with two Japanese artists: the haiku by Matsuo Basho, based on his work and poetic sensibilities while living as a traveling poet-monk in 17th century Japan and the woodblock print by “Moon and Bush Clover” by Tsutsui, Toshimine (1863-1934) which he painted on a fan.

Unless we’re Japanese scholars and/or citizens and/or zen practitioners or students of Japanese woodblock art, it’s unlikely we can understand the full illusions and sensibilities of Basho’s poetry and Toshimine’s artwork. Still, his words as translated speak to me and fit my sensibilities as a man growing up in 20th century North America, and in particular, one who found himself immersed in the “dating game” several years after a painful divorce. And there I was, once again, “in seclusion, sitting propped against the same worn post.” In case you’re worried, I’m fortunately paired up now with a wonderful gal who has a firm hold on my heart.

Notes:

All haiku are by Basho. The translations above were found at website titled “Basho” and cited R.H. Blyth, W.J. Higginson, J. Reichhold and Sam Hamill as translators of various haiku. “A Monk’s Journey” is haibun with a mix of my prose intertwined with translations of Basho’s haiku. It was first published in the journal Simply Haiku. I present it to show how writers can work in conversation, so to speak, with the Japanese masters and other contemporary poets. . . .