is like a cloud sleeping on the lowlands, sleeping on the green sweet grasses, sleeping on the yellow stalks of harvest, sleeping on the shallow pool of leftover rain, sleeping in the ditch and mud, sleeping on the stones and forgotten relics left behind, sleeping in the cemetery’s silence and low moan of the wind, sleeping during the day and the night, sleeping beneath the sun and the moon, sleeping when there are stars, sleeping when there are no stars, sleeping wherever there has been a war. Which is everywhere and nowhere and all at once. Forever and ever. Amen.

A prayer, a lost
votive candle that appears
when least expected

Author’s Note: This haibun was inspired by the stunning landscape my husband and I passed recently on our way from Krakow to Bielsko-Biala, a city near the foothills of the Tatra Mountains where my cousin lives. Oh, those lovely fields.

Bio: Linda Nemec Foster