Ray Rasmussen

Dog Star

tea kettle whistling –
steam clouds
the windows

Thursday night. Another wife-daughter fight . . . raised voices, crying, doors slamming, I grab my jacket, call the border collie and bolt into the frigid night. The ravine trail is barely visible, the stream frozen . . .

beneath
the skin of ice –
dark waters

An owl calls. I pause, wait for the next call, let the silence sink in. Branches sweep toward a star-filled sky. The dog presses close, warm fur, her tail wagging . . .

Sirius
on the horizon –
a nudge toward home

Notes:
1. This is a redraft of a haibun that originally appeared in Lynx XXII:3, October 2007.
2. This is an example of an Interlaced or Alternating Prose and Verse Elements haibun form. For a discussion and examples of haibun forms, see Jeffrey Woodward, "Form in Haibun," Haibun Today 4:4 December 2010.