Margaret Chula
This is what was bequeathed to me
a crow’s feather on the trail this afternoon swept clean by a work crew
my footfall soft on the cold ground the clouds parting to light my way
into the scent of yellow leaves the way they mingle with pine and pitch
and my own scent of bergamot bequeathed to me by my mother her arms
wrapped around me the sound of her voice how I have forgotten it but not
the pendulum clock that chimes every quarter hour with a different tune—
that too bequeathed to me and inside the pendulum box a B&W photo
of Mother and her best friend Kay I let them rest together beneath a light
film of dust as the clock ticks aways the seconds, minutes, hours, years.
packing up her house
a cache of love letters
not from my father
About the Author
Margaret Chula has been writing haiku, haibun, and tanka for over forty years. Her haibun memoir, Firefly Lanterns: Twelve Years in Kyoto, received a NYC 2022 Big Book Award in Multicultural Nonfiction. Her new haibun chapbook, Clothes to Go Out In, was recently released. Maggie lives in Portland, Oregon, and enjoys hiking in the Columbia River Gorge.