Cherie Hunter Day
Interlude
The lilac bushes just outside my window are skeletal, but there’s still music in the woven cluster of twigs and dried grasses. What can I sing to this abandoned cradle? The nest is more ornament than shelter. Yet somehow the hollow transmits purpose as a space held open. Snowfall fills the cup and continues to heap up more snow. The wind sharpens the mound into an icy turret. Absence makes this one, holy, drawn-out note.
winter expanding the open ask of empty
About the Author
Cherie Hunter Day has published haibun since 2000; haiku and tanka since 1993. Her prose poetry and flash fiction have also garnered awards. A House Meant Only for Summer (Red Moon Press, 2023) is her most recent collection. She lives in New Hampshire not far from Massabesic Lake.
Wow! That haiku takes my breath away.
What a lovely, profound meditation on ”absence”–and how it is ”somehow” full. ”What can I sing to this abandoned cradle?” The haibun is your answer to that gorgeously formed and resonant question. Thank you!