Millikin University Student Haibun

Ryan Casey

Ryan Casey graduated with a B.A. in literature. After graduating in May, 2000, he moved to Japan where he is teaching conversational English and literature.
Ryan's essay on tanka.

when night falls . . .

by
Ryan Casey

 on my skin, wind
 yet when I look up
 the clouds, the sky still

It cannot be memory.  Nor does it exist in dreams.  It is some form of reality that is intangible and yet so fantastically sensual that existence becomes utterly unquestionable.  And I am here, and the sun is softly sinking beneath the horizon. The shadows stretch like a cool embrace. 

For a moment-not even a second-the trees and the creatures are silent.  An eerie sense of waiting.  But then motion continues again.  Notes underscored by water, finding its way around a bend in the stream. 

There is a tree.  I donât know what kind.  I donât know trees.  Not by name.  But here-this tree-I know (sense?  understand?) its personality.  Two limbs split at the trunk, growing apart.  Twisted with a pain that refuses regret. 

The bark feels rough under my hands.  It wears a layer of dead skin away.  Dry, white scratches.  I close my eyes.  Take a slow breath.  Air filling my chest.  Crisp.  Dark.  Night now. 

 starlight shimmers
 in ripples
 of a jumping fish
 a leaf falls to the stream
 floats away

I was here with you once.  Wasn't I? 

Your long hair tumbling across my face.  Obscuring the moon-half full.  The earth cool, solid against the back of my neck.  Your lips warm-hot and fleeting-at my throat. 

Our words dancing.  Floating upwards.  Transcendental. 

You absent-mindedly wrote our initials in a heart.  Etched in the mud.  Near the winding stream. 

Memory is like craziness.  And I doubt.  The past.  Myself. 

Alone, I begin to walk.  Slowly.  Into the night.  And the moon.  And memory.  And into the reality of myself.

 footsteps in the mud
 fall gently into the dark blue
 of moon shadows


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student research on haiku haiku by Millikin students directory of haiku magazines

 

© 2001, Dr. Randy Brooks• Millikin University
last updated 8/16/01 • about this web site