Friday 5 September 2008

Haibun for Fiction Friday

Mt Koya was cold. So cold it froze
the offerings to the Gods.
The Gods were so cold they knew nothing of
the suffering of the monks.

In the shadow the monks lived, in the
coldest corner of the coldest mountain of Japan.
This knowledge came to Akira the morning
he found the tofu offering frozen dried to the alter.

Akira watched the cranes fly through the sky
of ice, as white as the peak of the mountain.
At night he dreamed and in his dreams he became
one of the birds of heaven.
And he flew someplace warm.

The dream would end the moment the cold crept into
the plain room where he slept. It curled around
his toes, and his fingers. It nipped his slender
nose and kissed his eyelashes.
And he knew that Koya-san had caught him back again.

Frozen deep
in the heart of the mountain
dreams.

3 comments:

Jodi Cleghorn said...

I'm not a huge fan of poetry, but I love this kind of free form poetry ... the images that it evokes, the questions that it throws up for the reader. I loved the line about the freeze dried tofu - you get a real sense of just how cold it is.

I host a musical writing prompt on Mondays - www.mondaymusicalmusings.blogspot.com This week's prompt is the Stones "Satisfaction".

Anonymous said...

Lenore - this is a beautifully composed work. It stays so consistently in its voice and conveys images and emotions so very well.

Lenore said...

Thanks everyone! Yes, it is based ona recipe I saw in the Jpn cookbook. A haibun is a form of Japanese poetry that combines prose with a haiku.