My friends and I agree to meet up - its been years since we exchanged meaningful conversations face to face. We greeted each other as if it was only yesterday that we were in high school, preparing to graduate and going off our different paths. Have we really changed all these decades? Except for a few wrinkles and grey hairs, we shared our life's challenges and discover more similarities than differences. But the best was bonding over food, stories and future reunions at this stage in our lives.
Apple trees are heavy with green fruits and because we know how sour it can be, no one gathers the apples. Most of them are falling on the grass, bruised and browning for the birds and insects. Early evenings are now cooler as the sun shimmers over veiled clouds, setting earlier than yesterday.
sun is gold-masked coin
behind grey clouds - crickets sound -
echoes of the past
Posted for dVerse Poets - Haibun Monday, Sounds of Koorogi, Hosted by Victoria C. Slotto.
I find it so clever how you used the transition between two paragraphs that both reflected changes, different as they might be, to capture the sense of the title. Perfect haiku.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about your get-together, Grace. and appreciate the greeting 'as if it was only yesterday that we were in high school' - I've had that experience too. I like the transition from reunion to apples and autumn, a perfect metaphor for the changing seasons of life, and the crickets hiding in the haiku!
ReplyDeleteThis is a lovely line:
ReplyDelete"sun is gold-masked coin"
Remarkable and clever transitions from paragraph to paragraph, still threading the poem together with with a vibrant theme. August is a strange month; the apex of heat index, and open door to autumn. In Montana it can freeze mid-month. I loved the crickets hiding in the haiku; clever buggers.
ReplyDeleteYou moved effortlessly from gathering of friends to harbingers of autumn. Enjoyable!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your Haiban. Perhaps you should rub your wings together to call all your old friends back together again.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. I love the emotion this evokes.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. Those apples feed deer and bear, too....gifts!
ReplyDeleteI like how you link crickets with the past. Intriguing.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful haibun and haiku Grace. I like the transition between the two paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteLooking back, 'it only seemed like yesterday', yes! How time flies?
ReplyDeleteHank
Sure shows that some things hold true no matter how much time passed.
ReplyDeleteChanges in seasons and in life. Lovely.
ReplyDeleteChanges in relationships and changes in seasons. So similar. Excellent write. Love the haiku!
ReplyDeleteReally cohesive piece: title, essay, and haiku all come at the same theme from different angles.
ReplyDeleteSuch a melancholy tone to this one, especially the crickets, and the apples nobody bothers to gather.
ReplyDeleteSo beautiful, Grace. I, too, love how you tie the changes with your friends to the seasonal shifts--and how you address them with effective transitions between paragraphs. The haiku has so poignancy!
ReplyDeleteI particularly enjoy your images of the sun glimmering over veiled clouds and as a gold-masked coin. Janice
ReplyDelete