Some of the windfalls have been collected and piled on a plastic garden chair. There are no signs of wild-life bites or nibbles, and only one green apple among them. They blush with October colours and scent. Among them, one is more than half russet, almost bronze, a bruised rogue among the beauties. It must […]
Tag: Haibun Monday
Morning
Since I retired and as I get older, I find I need less sleep. I frequently wake around three, four or five o’clock, unable to return to the dark cocoon that enveloped me so cosily when I was younger. When the cats chirrup from the bedroom door, I no longer turn over and burrow back […]
No crickets here
I’ve always been attracted to the sound of crickets. As a child, I was enchanted by their presence in American films, when characters sat on the porch in the evening to a soundtrack of crickets chirping; and then, when I visited Italy several times during summer, I was amazed by the constant background noise, even […]
Hiroshima Spores
I wasn’t alive in August 1945 – I arrived eleven years and a day after Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. I knew nothing of the horrors of those atomic bombs until I saw ‘The Bomb’, Episode 24 of ’The World at War’, a documentary series I watched with my father and, more recently, with […]
Under the Table at Grandmother’s House
Although my grandmother was quite open and modern in her outlook, her tastes were old-fashioned. This was reflected in the house where I grew up: in its solid furniture, embroidered cushions and tablecloths that hung low to cover the table legs. For a small child, the dining table was a house or a tent, where […]
Dragonflying
It’s the vivid season when colours are like splashes from an artist’s palette: ochre fields untold shades of leaves and grasses […]
Wild Bird Tamed
When I was a teenager, I felt that I was caged by my parents, by school and by petty rules of society: wear suitable clothes, don’t smoke, don’t drink, be home by ten, that sort of thing. I rebelled, escaped from the cage and did my own thing. Later, I felt trapped by responsibility: earning […]
