“Generally, a haibun consists of one or more paragraphs of prose written in a concise, imagistic haikai style, and one or more haiku. A haibun may record a scene, or a special moment, in a highly descriptive and objective manner or may occupy a wholly fictional or dream-like space. The accompanying haiku may have a direct or subtle relationship with the prose and encompass or hint at the gist of what is recorded in the prose sections.”
This is the second in a series of seasonal haibun that I’m working on. They can easily be read as individuals, though, there are through lines, so I’ve removed the paywall on the Autumn 2024 haibun for anyone who would like to begin at the beginning. I will continue to do that as the series proceeds. There is both audio and text for each. The audio for this one is above and the text below.
I am enjoying the haibun very much as a form and as a way of thinking. It is a pleasurable, curious space, and, I think, a fairly accurate record-keeping device, which interests me greatly. It’s like fitting a months-long journal onto a postcard.
A Haibun for Each Season / Winter 2025 Meaning’s collapse / is your strong point – Rae Armantrout The sound of wind is decided by the length of the needle on the pine. We step out and everything is quiet, white. Not quite silent but all the voices gone sweet and high—titmice, juncos, kinglets, the hen turkey and her poults, the bobcat chirping by the spine of the roadkill deer, the saw-whet beeps like an answering machine all night. Barred owls are out in daylight - in the orchard, in the yard, perched on the wire at Stacey farm where this summer I saw the kingfisher and the kestrel sit side by side, one hunting the field, one the pond. I thought, not a sparrow stands a chance out there. I am, all of a sudden, less scared to drive in snow. Despite being less ready to die, when the car slips and goes a little sideways, there is joy. Beech leaves tsk the days away, asking When was the first wire barbed? How long before the butcherbird knew to pierce his prey there? How did the stickleback know he could have ten spines, or nine spines, or eight? How did we smell propolis on a warm winter day and know to squeeze the poplar buds, to pack it on our cracked skin in spit poultice? All the time, worlds collide and slip inside each other. We live in the uncanny valley now. Fabula spun from skeins of sheep with hardware disease. I find myself needing to know what the sounds and smells of dens are. Bears, coons, snakes. Do they dream? Of me? The grouse in her makeshift cave on the coldest night, the danger of getting iced in. What’s it like in there, cave walls tight as a second skin? Dander, down, soft bird breathing, feather sounds, zip, rustle, hush, purr, the uncertainty of emergence. The stretch marks in the red oak's skin seem to brighten into lungblood pink. I dream of womb-lit babies and tattooing my nipples black. In February, Horsehead seals collect in huge groups to give birth along the coast of Maine. Think of it – being born, warm, into the sea. White as wavecaps, then silver, wet stone with dark marks, polished with the rocks on Jasper beach. You live there, thirty years in the surf. I find a seal’s skull sunk in marsh mud. Grasses fill its eyes and mouth, and with such savage teeth I think it’s a snarling dog with a forked red samphire tongue. Inside every hole in every dead tree is a face - chickadee, owl, emptiness. Ennui and eschaton again, a time for angelology and ice fishing. We’re all asking, I think, how to die right. Why make of things a purpose? The euphoria of focus never lasts. The lights in the night sky are moving away from one another – look. For months, the whitewashed earth has shown us everything –a schizoid prophet– pointing the beauty way, the fox way, the hare. Snow shows the pleasure of telling the truth. One day, it has enough and gives way, and we step out to the sound of water. We begin to think of trout with violets in their mouths. Once we think this, we cannot stop it. We may plead for one more snow, and we may get it, but spring comes like morning, before the dream goes good or bad. Earlier each day night abandons me. Light comes before I’m ready.
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