a haibun

Where did it come from, this premonition that someday I will be parted from my head?

ovenbird
pivoting on those thin
pink legs
Well, if that’s the only way to turn my internal monologue off… But it’s absurd how even the ranting of the powerless must now be silenced in the cathedral we’ve built out of lies and Cold War gargoyles.

forest road
lined with the fallen
wood thrush song
The possibility of nuclear annihilation hangs over everything in a way it hasn’t for decades—and seems nearly as invisible to TV pundits as the class war grinding down millions.

green haze of leaves
who turned my tongue
back to stone
I’m still mulling the report in the Ukrainian press that the reason for Boris Johnson’s trip to Kyiv in April was to let them know we don’t support peace. Three days later, talks collapsed.

sunset
and me imagining
anywhere else
It’s fine to say we stand with Ukraine, but what does it mean if our governments’ strategic objectives require their continued slaughter?

dogwoods
every white cross now
is for the moon