Tag: haibun
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My Hands
My hands are a reader’s hands. They hold open the covers of good books with practiced ease and no fatigue. My hands are a poet’s hands. The right grasps the pen with skillful poise and delivers a peculiarly modern form of sanskrit only I can read. Both possess fingers that dance across keyboards with a…
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Metamorphic Exemplars
The last full week in August. The swan song of summer vacation. A flock of Canadian Geese in V-formation flew southeast late last week. & while a return of summer heat sizzles the Westchester County communities along the Long Island Sound, oak and maple leaves began falling. That’s why there’s a poignancy in seeing the…
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Belonging, or Not
A former karate teacher once told me that in every society of any scale (from club to nation) there are zealots, followers, and heretics. “And I’m a heretic,” he added, referring to his role within his dojo. But he looked obedient enough, responding to Sensai’s commands during a school-wide Karate demonstration. searching still for the…
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Realization
“Everything I let go of had claw marks on it.” Sitting this morning, realizing You were there all along. All through her drunken tirades, and his violent reactions. All through the High School bullying and the college dissipation. All through that horrible year teaching at that once-dream job in a suburban High School. It was…
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I, Chicken Parmesan (Encore, 8/20/24)
I rise from a corpse of poultry. Cold steel flays the fat off of me. Yellow yoke bathes me, before immersion in flour and breadcrumbs completes me. I first face the fire in a vat of boiling oil. Every impurity scourged from me, my texture a golden brown, warm marinara sauce pours upon me. The…
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For the Earth: on hiking
One step after another. Along jutting roots and sliding pebbles. Up switchbacks anc across cutouts of plateus. Down one ravine wall to rise up another. All to reach a summit, and to savor its view. A hike: more than just a leisure activity or outdoor activity. It is a way to participate in nature, to…
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Gemini Solarity
Sometimes, there is a softness to sunlight. A pale glow on verdant cherry leaves. A warmth instead of a sear. A swath of cotton instead of a scouring pad. Sometimes, there is a harshness to sunlight. A blinding radiance on worn white siding. A scortch instead of warmth. A drowning in hot coals instead of…
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A Meditation
Morning light. Sitting on a zafu atop a zabuton. Breathing in. Feeling the itchy sensations of my own skin, rheumatoid aches, and chi. Breathing out. Again, and again, as thoughts arise and fall like heartbeats. Until…just this. & then the 20-minute alarm goes off. mid-August the first oak leaf falls
Frank J. Tassone 