A Modern Haibun

 by John Samuel Tieman 

                                                            another Monday

                                                            again I surrender to

                                                            the whisper of snow

My wife is reading Freud this evening.   I sweep the fireplace, the ashes from Sunday more interesting for what they were.   Phoebe says something I don’t quite catch, something about desire.  

I stare out our picture window.   I inventory our yard.   Pine, twilight, beast, leaf, pulse and fog, raven, root.   In the west, from work, a husband caught on a detour lengthened tonight by longing

A portion of my memoir appears in this month’s Vietnam magazine, and I’m surprised by letters from strangers.   Several veterans had the same job I had.   Others vets were stationed where I was, An Khe, an obscure corner of jungle.   One message from a wife — her husband never talks about our war.

                                                            in this Nam photo

                                                            the burnt torso of a monk

                                                            an enemy monk

                                                            tonight a cigarette glows

                                                            in the dark and is crushed

_____

Filed under: John Samuel Tieman, Poetics, Prose