haibun

My fathers sword (a haibun)

/ A. Gouedard / Leave a comment

In the mornings at breakfast my mother would ask ”Who are you being today? What should I call you?” It was an arrangement we had. I was an imaginative child and she humoured me. I would answer Robin Hood or Peter Pan or Galahad, needing breakfast before the quest. She kept to my names very well, but she much preferred her dogs.

you can’t go far in this life,
or do any good,
without a fantasy horse

My father never asked such a question. I was his carpenters mate, whoever I was. We didn’t talk much as he sawed and I held the board steady or passed him nails. I am sure he knew what I thought. He made me a wooden sword. It could strike a mighty blow.

in a powder of sawdust,
companionship
was always more than enough

i rode my fantasy horse
in the realm of dreams
but my father armed me well

Twenty-Four Shipwrecks ~ a haibun

/ A. Gouedard / Leave a comment

How many wrecks in the uncharted depths? Century after century of shipwrecks, seaweed shrouded and armoured in barnacles, iron ribbed rusted skeletons of the vessels they were.

Sea born we are by that life giving ocean that can swallow men whole, drowning in storms, when dark clouds are broiling.

Lost sailors bones rest on the bottom at a depth that is deeper than the height of the highest of mountains ~ fish eat their flesh, their bones a part of the sea ~ they rest there from war, work, exploration ~ they rest there now in water rocked graves where no sunlight, starlight nor moonlight can ever reach in the ebb and the flow and the sway of deep tides.

 

stars hidden in cloud

winds howl darkness, no mercy

a wave wall, a void

 

sea throat swallows, whole,

spinning, deep to sea grave,

sand grains their worn bones

 

wind drop, empty light,

nothing there on the surface

tranquil cloud mirror glass

 

 

(the title Twenty Four Shipwrecks refers to a figure I saw online when reading about Trawler Fishing in Britain – twenty-four was stated as the number of trawlers lost each year)