Michael Ketchek

Birthday Haibun

It is nap time at the day care center where I work, and have worked for thirteen years. The children are sleeping on their cots on this pleasant July afternoon. It is my birthday. I am forty-four years old, about fifteen to twenty times older than the children in my care. I am twice as old as my co-teacher. In two years, if we both are alive, I will be half as old as my father.

None of my fellow workers have remembered my birthday, and I have done nothing to remind them. In the quiet I can hear birds chirping through the open window.

gentle wind
ruffles where my wild hair
used to be