Tag: haibun

Strings Tied in Knots

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 1 Comment

| Recently Published Haibun by Ray Rasmussen |

In her poem “The Flaw,” Molly Peacock writes, “The best thing about a hand-made pattern in a weaving is the flaw.” She suggests that a red string standing out in a blue-toned carpet weave could be likened to a red bird flying into a blue sky.

My partner is a talented fabric artist, and so I read Peacock’s poem to her and ask, “What do you see as my red strings, if any?”

After a long pause, she replies, “Your swearing – when you get frustrated and curse at something like your computer when it’s not working. No one in my family ever swore.”

“Is there a way you could turn my rarely exercised flaw into a red bird soaring into a blue sky?” I suggest.

“No, for me it’s more like a screeching Bald Eagle with talons extended as it swoops down on a lamb,” she says.

I mention that Peacock wrote that a flaw can be thought of as a reaching out, as the string saying, in effect, “I’m alive, discovered by your eye.”

“Oh, I do know you’re alive when you shout and swear,” she replies.

“What if I tell you that the ancient Persians deliberately put a flaw in their carpets because only God is entitled to be perfect and it would be arrogant for a mortal to aspire to perfection?”

 “I’d not worry too much about being close to perfection.”

couples counseling –
picking strings from
my frayed sweater

This is a revision of a piece published in Frogpond.

Molly Peacock’s wonderful poem, “The Flaw,” can be found here -> link

The Ask. A haibun by Ray Rasmussen

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 3 Comments

| Recently Published Haibun by Ray Rasmussen |

image by r. rasmussen

The Ask

My lover asks me:
"What is the difference
between me and the sky?"
          ~ Nizar Qabbani

After reading Qabbani’s poem together, my lover smiles and asks: “What’s the difference between me and the sky?”

The difference, my love, is when in spring, you guide me to view the purple crocus poking above winter’s leaf litter.

And when in summer, you put your canoe paddle aside to pick up your camera, and my eyes follow your gaze to a tiny bonsai-shaped spruce growing from a sawn stump in an Algonquin Lake.

And when in fall, you see ATV tracks that have scoured the forest path we love to walk, and I see your eyes flood with pain.

And when in winter you hush me and stop to gaze at deer tracks in the snow.

And when today, you gasp and your face lights up when a red fox gracefully crosses Moss Stone creek on an inches-wide log that no human would dare walk.

And when minutes later, a second fox follows, bark-yips, receives a bark-yip in return, and together they cavort in spring’s warming sun.

All that, my love, is how you are of the Earth, and different from the sky.

warming sun –
her hand slips
into mine

Epigraph is from Nizar Qabbani’s poem, “My Lover Asks Me,” translated by B. Frangieh & C. Brown.

Published in Cattails: The Journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society, April 2020

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. . . .