Cherie Hunter Day
The World According to Cyd
When I was in grammar school, I got a globe for Christmas. The world was held on its proper axis and conveyed how much of the Earth’s surface was ocean. My sister decided to redraw the boundary lines to more clearly represent the geopolitics of the early 1960s. She used a black Sharpie to reshape the countries in eastern Europe and indicate the Great Wall of China. The redraw, while technically more up to date, emphasized the world was open for interpretation and could be modified on a whim. I’d spin and spin the globe as fast as I could to blur all the lines. After years of starting and stopping, the tape holding the two hemispheres together wore thin in the Indian Ocean.
shepherd moon
the gravity
of an older sister
About the Author
Cherie Hunter Day has written haibun since 2000. Her haibun “In Rumble Dark” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. Recent collections include Miles Deep in a Drum Solo (Backbone Press, 2022), which won the 2021 Backbone Press Haiku Book Contest, and A Color for Leaving (Snapshot Press, 2017). She lives in northern California among some thirsty redwoods.
Hi Cherie,
This haibun said so much about two sisters and their roles and how they may interpret world views- one encased and created in a globe, another in the process of creation or re-creation. Karina
Thanks for your comments, Karina. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Big sisters do exert a special kind of gravity.
Cherie
Strong imagery that helps tell a story with many layers. I am looking at my childhood globe right now and thinking about how the lines have changed.
I enjoyed the layers in this haibun. The tanka is excellent!