Last night a hard rain played the house like a snare drum. Sleep was broken by bangs and flashes. It could have been the outbreak of war.

direct hit
another ancient oak
loses a limb

Now rocks are drying, high on the riverbank, in bright sun. The only sound is a gentle rippling as the reinvigorated flow forces its way past ancient obstacles.

shell shock
in the new day’s cold light
hugging my knees

There are lessons here, patterns in the chaos. An irresistible force and an immovable object. Both images within my reach, yet beyond my grasp.

capture and release
the turbid rainwater
between my fingers

David J. Kelly

is a regular contributor to haiku and haibun journals. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Poetry Quarterly, The Haibun Journal, Presence, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Contemporary Haibun Online, and MacQueen’s Quinterly. He is senryu editor for the short form journal cattails.

His collection of haiku and related works, Small Hadron Divider (Red Moon Press, 2020), received an honourable mention in the Touchstone Book Awards. He is also the author of a collection of haiku, senryu, and haibun: Hammerscale from the Thrush’s Anvil (Alba Publishing, 2016).

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Attar of Roses, haibun by Kelly in contemporary haibun online (16:2, August 2020)

⚡ Chernobyl is currently 1.00008150762% safe, haibun by Kelly in KYSO Flash (Issue 10, Fall 2018)