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Marjorie A. Buettner...

Haibun

Valentine's Day in the Nursing Home

I have a longing she said and her voiced trailed off like the fading whistle of some distant-riding train into the winter night or an evening bird at the last hour of light banking the river's edge with one song. Whether it was for her cigarettes, a drink, or something less substantial, more fundamental, I do not know, but I heard it in her voice and it cut through like hard rain through ice, dissolving, in an instant, all pretenses. And I knew this disclosure was for my ears only to carry with me until the end days like an inherited gift that goes wherever you go, taken out from time to time to polish its edges so when the sun catches it, at that fragile time of day, you will remember her.

Valentine's day-- all of her secrets packed away

WHCHaibun 2001-04-04

Copyright Marjorie Buettner, 2001