Poems

Wanderlust – Haibun

My first attempt at Haibun.

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I often dream of living in a cabin in the woods. Handed the chance to live life over again, I would choose a career as a Forest Ranger, managing forests, assisting people who understand them, teaching those who don’t.

Look now through my eyes
How vision winds endlessly
Look there! Do you see?

I always felt I was born two-hundred years too late. I would have been a mountain man in another life, though it meant giving up my cherished two hot showers a day.

Harsh reality
Taking my ease from labor
Habits of comfort

I travel to Maine each September with my dog, Yoshi. We camp and we hike, we drive restless roads and make memories with mind and lens. We marvel at the view from atop Big Moose Mountain and the primitive remoteness of Spencer Pond. I am tempted to retreat from civilization.

The call of my heart
Wilderness isolation
Captive to my life

I have but one regret, though my life is blessed beyond measure.

Memories not made
Are remembered in hindsight
Go now, my Soul, live!

22 thoughts on “Wanderlust – Haibun”

  5. OK, 1) Hey, haibuns are cool! (I’m normally very resistant to rules as a creative.) And this is too-coincidentally timed because I left off in my poetry exploration with my students yesterday having them explore the poetry types on shadowpoetry.com and collaboratively trying to write some of their choosing. Of course, most picked the shortest to fulfill my “do 3” requirement. Changing my lesson plan up: haibuns today! 😀

    2) Ditto for me, personally, on all your thoughts and feelings in this well-crafted haibun of yours. I mega-feel your themes, but I drool over your craft. I recently wrote about the woods, myself, but just went to revisit it and realized I recalled it and put it in my drafts because it hovered between my two blog themes (basically too personal and nature), and I didn’t know where I should put it, but I just put it back under this blog (“Take Me to the Forest”). (People say just be wholly you in one place, but I don’t think that’s possible for me. It’s complicated.) Your closing haiku, personally applied, makes me teary, in a good way (my sadness is ever present, mixed, in my happiness). My writing’s been trash lately because I’m in unknown life-territory and trying not to quit writing altogether, but I’m usually my biggest fan, lol.

    3) (Typed and deleted several versions here…) I’m grateful to have found your words. You have no idea how good they are for me, especially at this particular point in my life, creatively and personally.

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    1. I’m totally against rules, but Haibun rules make it a Haibun so I guess they’re not too bad. The forest and the sea; I need a forest to walk in so I can think. I can hike a twenty-mile trail and I’m emotionally drained AND refreshed at the end. I can let the sea sweep me away lost in thought for hours. Both the forest and the sea are therapy.
      I don’t think of your writing as trash. It’s very personal and hits home in a lot of ways on my end too. I love your words. If you ever stop writing, I’ll write about you; I wouldn’t make you a character in my novel and kill you off or anything like that, though 🙂
      I’m afraid my responses today are disjointed; I’m reading and responding during lunchbreak at work 🙂 You’re great lunchbreak reading!

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      1. Great! I am “teaching” it (I don’t do traditional lecture: I perform dramatically with audience participation and movement) bell-to-bell today, beginning with improving their group haikus. Tomorrow they’ll write individually, and I’ll post your link suggestion for reference. As if I don’t have enough ideas, I was reminded how I once thought of a blog focusing on making poetry relevant and fun and therapeutic for teens, blending some passions. Speaking of lunch break, we don’t get long… TTYL (:

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      4. I just saw this and about 6 other of your responses in my Spam folder! I wonder why some end up there? I’ve gone through and approved them all and will respond as soon as I can. I apologize for this!

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Ha! No worries. I didn’t feel my usual paranoia of possible rejection. And I do talk way too much about meaningful things. You make me feel safe and calm somehow though. Like wading in a creek instead of drowning at sea. 🙂 That’s where my life is finally headed though, too. So nice timing by the cosmos.

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