crumbs & constellations: a haiku story
[A story written in 24 haiku]
embers rise from this
dying fire to meet a roaring
quickening dawn
the woven bamboo
bed frame of a love
stitched together
rolling hills
bodies beneath white
linen sheets
weight of my
world on a driftwood bench
the baby kicks
first inhale
in a kaleidoscope of emotion...
a woman transformed
tiny hand on my finger
eyes meet across the years
I fall in love again
the entrance of a new
life into mine... my old one now
a lifetime ago
apricot halo
the silent witness of the night light
as I sing him to sleep
spring
like the ones in my childhood
only I have changed
tupperware drawer
more exciting than all the toys
in the nursery
here but already gone
my son’s heavy eyelids limp
like autumn leaves
flying boats
my son’s crib mobile
swings high
sleeping child
the hold of great power
over me
hatchlings and fledglings
the ebb and flow of tides
the world over
bath full but arms empty
in two steps my son has grown
smatterings of
children’s laughter sifts through a
sunless sky
tired pilgrim
seeking heaven
in paradise
star shaped crackers
my son’s mouth full of
crumbling constellations
lambs become lions
in the brick fist of the
old schoolyard
baby gates and
birthday cakes, oh
how the years flee from me
the night
blows over the brow
of my sleeping son
cluster of crows
rising and falling above the treeline
a dance of omens
vibrant carousel
strangers through the
waiting room
mayhem
on a molecular level
decisions on a diagnosis
fading breaths
dancing marigolds look most
beautiful this year
my love,
my love
can’t heal you
howling wind
crying for a resting place
mountain peak
turbulent river of green
the wind in the weeping willow tree
sadness haunts
me from the hospital to the
funeral home
sunbeams
the halo that shrouds his coffin
dark pools
eyes of the mounted
deer head
gravity and grief
suddenly weak in the forces
of this world
empty corners above
even the spiders know
my hospitality has died
scatterings of geese
flee against a darkening sky
winter sweeps the birds away
the feeling
of feelings
unexpressed
heartbeat
loud beneath the tent of
lonely bed sheets
lonesome blossom
under a crowded sakura tree
next to me
wish upon a withered star
crashing down tonight
never to be lit
17 birthday candles
last year’s calendar
a hundred tidy boxes of
old memories
half a moon
he too is afraid to fully
reveal himself
flowers condemned
to die on my kitchen shelf
gifts from the living
children’s laughter
breaks the frozen trance
of winter
(to Finnian)
black speckles
berries along the river
I last saw him at
I open the door
and a loon calls somewhere far
—fullness of the moon
(to Enda)
ribbon of bright light
the struggle and spreading of
this hopeful spring dawn
spiralling, rising
blossoms on a resurrected
breeze
planting a sapling
a new season for the
both of us
cold ocean air
blows the cobwebs from the furthest
corner of my brain
coffee bean clusters
growing in the california sun
soon, a better season
sprinklings of a
new dawn in the dying embers
of my winter fire
Published as a micro-chapbook by the Origami Poetry Project | Spring 2024. Visit www.sophiaconway.ca for more.
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