Monday, June 24, 2013

Haibun Two Evenings





Today I went for a stroll in the evening. I have been near the stables, where you can smell the horses and hear them moving in the stables. The sky was still orange in the West. I listened to wind in the old oak trees, the constant rumble from the motorway, also some far noise from the marshalling yard, but more the twittering of birds. In the sky there were long dark clouds shifting in the wind in front of some light blue. I watched the swallows flying round and later, when it was getting darker the bats appeared. On the ground there were rabbits jumping through the high grass near the trodden football field, which looked funny. The colours were changing from green to grey. How peaceful this evening!

Wind in the oak trees
The orange sky in the West
Rabbits frolicking

Cool summer evening
Listening to birds and wind
Bats curving around



And I remembered an evening at Borobudur, Indonesia, three years ago, where I stayed at a small hotel looking across the paddy fields to a bamboo grove. The throbbing heat had stopped and I listened to the muezzin. There were also swallows, which disappeared with the falling night, and made place for the bats. The next morning I watched the bats moving under the roof tiles; then I knew why the cat was so busy on the ceiling above my room. In the early evening frogs were challenging the crickets.

Bamboo swaying
Behind the rice field
Birds calling the evening

Yellow bamboo leaves
Twirling down
As evening arrives



After the muezzin’s call
Bats circle above the paddy fields
The heat is leaving

Night has fallen
Shadow of the bamboo
Frogs challenging crickets

If I compare the two evenings, they are so different yet so much the same. Far away and home merging into a peaceful harmony.

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