Tag Archives: Haibun

Propriety be damned

“If My Lady would indulge me.” He bows smartly at the waist, his pampered palm outstretched. Every rule of decency demands, I must elegantly accept. 

His spit shine and neatened whiskers a blatant effrontery of couth, as ill intention sweet as succor slips, past lewd lascivious lips.

I smile through risen bile, endure his heated breath upon my nape. As stripped of everything but, title, all propriety be damned, I do as desperation dictates- and oblige- this deplorable ilk of man.

dread of derision
erases all decorum
impropriety ensues

It’s been awhile since I participated in Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday #synonymsonly. This weeks words Grace and Style however fed right my recent obsession with viewing all six seasons of Downton Abbey in their entirety- again- and I just had to try my hand.

My word choices have been italicized.

Insurmountable

When I accepted this position, I had no concept of how insane the pace would be.

I knew it was a seasonal hot spot, and was impressed by the fact that forty thousand odd people were expected to migrate through the sleepy little hamlet of Healy (year round population 1021) seeking the Alaskan Adventure over the four month summer season.

What I didn’t take into consideration was the fact that out of the seventy or so employees, only one tenth of them would have ever worked for this company before. In addition, an impressive number of our seasonal staff would be from exotic foreign countries and not only speak English as a second language, but for most them, this is their first exposure to a work environment.

Needless to say, every day is filled with obstacles that as individuals, few of us would be equipped to overcome alone. However, as a whole, somehow we miraculously pull together, and not only succeed in accomplishing our goal of working together as a team, but bring a distinct ring of sanity to an environment that does everything with it’s power, to challenge just that.


Spices and cultures
meld. Necessity being
our one common bond.

Insurmountable
does not translate well into
varied languages.

There is no ‘I’ in
team. Individual dreams
make magic happen.

Written for Eugenia’s BrewNSpew Cafe, prompt: Sanity.

Tundra Flower

Pasque Flower blooming in Healy Alaska

Where once I made use of everything and every one, manipulated my way through thought process and circumstance to achieve my own personal agenda, and cared not what effect my actions might have on that with which I surround myself, presently I find myself unchoreographed, stripped of all pretense.

I have not knowingly employed one power of deception, plotted a single course, nor sought out any weakness that may be used to my advantage, since I arrived.

I fear not, that I have gone from being the predator to the prey.

Instead, I am surrounded by a great feeling of contentment. As if the weight of constantly contriving my existence has been lifted from me. For the first time, I am experiencing life, without an encumbering need for the strategies I always thought were quintessential to creating my own little corner of the world.

I bloom now, because it is my time- not because I have made it so.


devoid of motive
stillness springs forth, disguised as
a tundra flower.

Focus on Rebirth

As a snow covered Mount Healy looks on from betwixt the clouds, I emerge from the woods, skirting the golf course on my way into work. Shoots of newly green grass push their way through the barely thawed surface of what was just a month ago a frozen tundra.

Soon the course will be rolling knolls of fresh green carpet on which will be played many a memorable round of golf, as our guests experience interior Alaska in the summertime.

A chill, not even remotely related to the temperature, runs through me, causing a wave of gooseflesh to raise up on my arms. I’m really here.

Crisp clean air tinged with
just the slightest hint of frost,
thaws once frozen heart.

A Haibun/Haiku written for Frank Tassone’s Haikai Challenge prompt: Newly Green, and Girlie on the Edge’s Six Sentence Story cue word: Focus.

Healy

My View

It is trailer park crazy up here, just up the road from Healy Alaska. I am talking Meth Lab Central looking to the more discerning eye. Junk cars, discarded furniture, buses that have a number of wheels standing between them and the road.

I am assigned to a trailer named Sunshine. She is a rich harvest gold. She is warm and bright, and I would venture to guess has been- since that color was a staple in American home decorating.

My view is snow capped Mount Healy, crowned in her majestic Castle Rock. I follow the moose tracks on the footpath just outside my bedroom window. They take me to the spruce surrounded silence that is Lake Otto, still tucked under what’s left of winters warm blanket of ice. The scent of spring whistles on the wind. And it is no longer the autumn of my life.

Healy Alaska
essential ingredients
in abundance

Wind, sky, and mountains
more than make up for the lack
of running water

Tinderbox trailer
park, kindling for long dried soul
ignites infinite
possibilities for a
blossom once lost in the haze

Written for Frank’s Hakai Challenge: Blossoms Haze.

My connectivity is currently limited. We have wifi in the wash house, which is right next to the outhouse, but not in our individual trailers.

I have imparted on an amazing adventure, and I’ll do my best to take you along, that is if you feel like doing remote Alaska in the springtime…