Month: December 2020

Haibun 5

Everyday, just after noon, this small white and gray bird flies in settling on the frame of the sliding glass door. Just the briefest moment later, his routine begins – bend, peck, straighten, hop – bend, peck, straighten, hop – industriously moving from one side of the window to another, searching for a morsels in the crevice. Their actions, driven by survival, bring an instant of beauty brigtening the gray December day. By the time I notice, grab my phone, and open the camera, my tiny lunch companion flies away to continue his day and leaves me to mine. Like so many other things in life, the only preservation of this moment will be the memory in the eroding edifice of my mind.

so many moments

have already flown away

fading from memory

Haibun 4

Sitting in the chair of my ‘work from home’ desk, I dismissed the sounds of rustling leaves just outside the window as being just another breezy gray December day. When I finally ignored the twenty-first century long enough to look… birds. At least five fat orange-breasted birds with gray feathers – I mistook them for robins but know not what they were – beautifully grabbing leaves with their beak and throwing them to the side with great violence over and over and over again. Their plumage matching the muted tones of autumn, one could almost mistake the leaves popping up and casting themselves aside rather than a small flock inhabiting my porch looking for – and occasionally finding – a meal. I sat there and watched them work for several minutes and then, when I moved to get up, they flew away, vanishing into the woods, maybe never to be seen on my porch again.

today, birds of spring

foraging through autumn leaves

winter approaches