Tag Archives: Haibun

Haibun, “Pride Before Fall” – writing process

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Three drafts of a haibun, for those of you who like to analyze writing to pieces. If that sounds awful to you, just read the last one (in bold), since it’s the final draft.

 

First draft: stream of consciousness. Passionate, but lacking cohesion. Doesn’t really make sense here and there. Many repeated words.

 

I drive through a frosted urban landscape. A sudden cold has passed through in the night. The grass is fuzzed white with frost.

It’s the tail end of the changing colors. The more vibrant trees, shocked, have dropped their leaves on the sidewalk. Heaps of vibrant color piled under the trees. No one yet has walked through them and disturbed the perfection of their distribution. The leaves coat the sidewalk an inch thick, pour over the curb and into the street, forming a perfect ombre circle underneath each tree. Only the most vibrant trees, the ones with the most to lose, have collapsed this way. As I drive by, they are still raining steady drops of color.

A death so graceful and extravagant, it looks like a wedding.

 

 

Second draft: the first draft edited to death. Reordered some, added some explanatory and expository phrasing. Rewrote most repetitive usages of “tree” “leaf” and “color.” 

Turned out awfully proper, don’t you think? I actually liked it a lot. But it doesn’t read easy.

 

Early morning. A cold snap passed through in the night, leaving the grassy urban landscape fuzzed white with frost.

It’s the tail end of the changing colors. Many trees have already gone leathery, taking the chill with stodgy, taciturn dormancy, blinking against the freeze, half asleep, withdrawn. The prouder, full-feathered trees, vulnerable by virtue of their vitality, shocked by the abrupt weather change, have dropped half their heavy pride overnight. Heaps of vibrant color pile on the sidewalk under the trees in crisp lemon yellow, or blushing peachy orange. Untossed by wind, untrod by morning commuter, nothing yet has disturbed the perfection of their distribution. Leaves coat the pavement an inch thick, pour over the curb and into the street, forming perfect ombre circles. 

Even as I drive by, they still steadily rain drops of brightness.

 

a death so graceful

and extravagant, it looks 

just like a wedding.

 

 

Went to lunch, came back, rewrote from scratch. The parts that stuck in my head were the keepers. I already had lots of alternate words in my head so I didn’t have to worry so much about repeating too much. It has more passion and flow like the first draft, while also retaining some of the form and vocabulary of the second draft.

 

The trees are raining color.

A cold snap has passed through, fuzzing the grass with frost. Most of the older trees sensed the turning of the seasons, and have already gone leathery and mute; they squinted through the onslaught as the first of many, prepared for the siege of winter. The young maples and honey locusts, vivacious and blustering in ostentatious reds, yellows, and peachy oranges, have suffered a setback. They lost leaves at an astounding rate: half of their burden dropped in one night. The sidewalks underneath them are buried in brightness, inches deep. Unable to contain the bounty, it spills over the curb and onto the road.

No people have passed through. No playful wind has yet mussed the heaps. The trees drip their pride, leaves falling fast like vibrant rain.

 

a dignified death

generous, extravagant

feels like a wedding

 

 

 

Aw crap. I looked at it too long and now I don’t like this draft either. Maybe I like the second one better. I couldn’t decide and that’s why I posted them all, under the guise of a “writing process” post. Tricked you.

Well, that’s the process. Now do what I do! Go out there and write something you won’t like!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haibun – Winter Maneuver

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Winter  attempts an advance against fall. To one side of the road, a cold snowscape of white-laced grass, two-tone evergreens, ancient gnarled branches softly pillowed with marshmallow, a study in black and white. To the other, fresh grass scattered with the discards of the glowy orange maple, the radiant yellow fingers of the gumball tree, the startling neon red of the burning bushes. Winter is gaining ground against the bounteous color, blotting out the many-hued lawns with pure white primer, heaping icing on the trees’ heads. The trees, still warm and flexible, shake the wet snow from their glorious manes, spattering sidewalk and pedestrian alike with gobs of slush. Dripping sounds off from all sides, in full stereo. Splat. Splat-splat. It was not the sky, but the trees which rained.

 

Ever she dances

Nature’s unconscious graces

Embrace all conflict

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haibun #2

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She is on her side on the couch. In her arms lies the dog in full bliss, eyes half shut. She absentmindedly scratches his ears, but never too much, her natural compassion an unconscious impulse. A lifelong struggle with acne has left small scars in her skin. Rich hair, dark eyelashes, full lips, artistic hands, and a glass of tequila at her side. She holds the dog as if he might want to leave her.

“I don’t deserve friends like you,” she says.  But she is wrong.

 

She is dwindling

See her pain, see her pain run

We watch, powerless

 

 

 

 

 

Night River

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I’m learning so much from the WordPress community.  I just found out there’s a beautiful form which blends prose and haiku, called haibun. Naturally I had to give it a try. Here goes.

 

 

Night River

 

There is stillness on top of the water, though it swirls and currents underneath. The river is quiet and deep in the cooling summer night, the world in black and white.

My sister says that underneath the darkness swim a multitude of carp battling for survival, pushing out the native fish with their incessant hunger, rapid reproduction, excessive growth. But can a stillness so deep really house this dramatic abundance? How can so much life be unseen, unheard? They do not sing their vitality like land creatures.

 

Warm river surface

Reflects a perfect full moon

A ripple twitches

 

Two men have lines running into the heart of the black water. One of them has pulled a gar onto shore and extracted the hook. He doesn’t want it. He rolls it toward the water, loathe to touch it any more than necessary. It comes to rest on its back, long pale belly toward the sky, little flat fins like a baby shark. It wriggles slowly, blind and mute, struggling its way down across the gray wet clay toward the water. It stops short, its body too heavy to move, eyes unable to blink against the dry bright moonlight, simple mind utterly overwhelmed. The man pokes it again with his foot, its instinctive defenses are nothing here in the light air, it can only writhe in an empty hopeless way. We all want it to go back but we can’t bring ourselves to touch its mucousy skin. There is a smell to the river (does the water smell like fish or do the fish smell like water?). It is ameobal, the smell of primordial soup, algae, microscopic life, placenta.

 

Alienated

The water won’t keep us now

She has new children