Friday, March 12, 2010

I have to go soon. I need to fetch an important package that I left behind. Time is getting short. There are people coming. Some of them have already arrived, but I'm still putting it off. It's not far, but the last time I came up that way I walked into a white fog. It was so dense I could barely see the ground. All I could do was force myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other, following my instinct on where the right path was, until I came out of it. The sky is now a bright, clear blue but I have a cold dread of walking into the fog again on that path. I have to go soon.

looking back on it
from a distance
the fog bank
as impenetrable from outside
as from within

3 comments:

Area 17 said...

Intriguing. I feel you have two pieces here that should stay separate.

I really like the prose piece, you are onto something here. Maybe a haiku if you want it to be haibun, but it's good on its own.

Really pleased to see more work from you, as you are one of my favourite poets! ;-)

Alan
Literature Director, 2010 Bath Japanese Festival

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Alison said...

Thanks! I'm often unsure what to do with brief prose pieces, other than blog them. There is a tendency to try to make them into haibun when they're probably not. Just not sure what they are!

Area 17 said...

It could work as a haibun with a single haiku. Also it's working as nano-fiction too. ;-)

Alan