A Memorial Tribute to Bruce Ross
Bruce Ross
Selected Haibun
Note: All of the following haibun are from Bruce’s book endless small waves: haibun (2008, HMS Press, London, Ontario, Canada) with the exception of “Aglow,” which appeared in Modern Haiku XXV, No. 2 (Summer 1994) and was his first published haibun.
Aglow
For some time now the late November days have been bleak. Once or twice there have been moments of brightening. To cheer myself I had gone last night to see “The Secret Garden” and recalled Keat’s “magic casements” for some reason, enchanged as I was with memories of when as a child my father took me to see the animated version of “Alice in Wonderland.” We had walked in after the film had begun. It was one of my first trips to the movies. What I remember is entering a sacred special place. The dark theater demanding a sense of awe. And there at the end of the tunnel of darkness the magical animated figures in brilliant pastel colors—a figuration from another dimension. Of dream. Of spirit. and the breathless rising shots last night in “The Secret Garden” of a diminishing wild landscape covered with the moving of shadows of clouds in bright light.
So I jogged my ritual run this morning in Durand Eastman Park in the drizzle:
November drizzle—
the squirrel's head beneath
the wet leaves
and drove back home in the, now, light rain:
November rain—
the outdoor jack-o-lantern
collapsing on itself
In the afternoon I went to a bookstore for the signing of my anthology Haiku Moment. The sales were fair but I had a good time (the manager said that she would have no trouble selling the remaining copies during the holiday season.) On the way home on the expressway my attention suddenly was drawn to a haze of flame at the horizon. The late afternoon light was collected in the top of the stand of naked trees on the horizon. I was somehow transported to some other dimension. I remembered the smile I had when I left “The Secret Garden” last night. I was, in some intangible way, home:
late afternoon light—
the stand of bare trees aglow
on the horizon