Today, once again I try to combine different prompts. Carpe Diem has both haibun and awake, and at dVerse Karin wants us to write about a trip.
The polished aluminium reflected the first rays from the rising sun, a sleek silver bird destined to carry me far away. I had slept bad and awakened in a state partially in dreams were my anxiety mingled with anticipation of a future unknown. What I left behind was just sorrow and darkness, and the air-plane was a sight much more beautiful, than anything I’d ever seen before.
leaving my past
awaken in anticipation
of rising sun
Many years looking back, I still recall those days of hope and resolution, when I had yet not faced the immigration officers and I had never before been treated as a liar The part of me I wanted to forget, has been growing inside as I walk the dirty streets of my city jungle.
smell of sunshine
replaced by garbage fumes
awake in cardboard box
To conclude my trip I feel a renewed anticipation, once again a silver bird, in the sleet of a winter it now appears so much more beautiful than the images I still recall of a rising sun reflected on polished metal. My trip is over, I’m going home again
disappointments die
my future’s clear again for me
awake at home
April 27, 2013

There is a very internalised dream-like quality to this journey.
Thank you.. yes it might not actually have happened at all… Still back were I started.
sometimes we have to leave everything to find where we really belong…key verse for me here was..The part of me I wanted to forget, has been growing inside… fine write sir..
Thank you. A part of me is a fiction writer I believe, and haibun is sometimes a fine combination.
I like the idea of leaving one’s past and awakening anticipating the rising sun. (And I like your use of the haibun form!)
thank you. Haibun is addictive both to read and to write…
First thing I said after reading this haibun was ‘WOW!’ And that says it all.
Thank you Kristjaan.. Somehow it fitted so well also with dVerse.
it has to feel so good to finally get home…and bet you could tell some interesting stories…from the agents questioning you and feelings…to waking up in that cardboard box…that is a step…wow…nicely done…the city itself can be quite discombobulating…
Yes. home is were we belong at the end of the day. Love the word discombobulating by the way..
I like the excitement of the departure and coming back home ~ The city jungle can be rough and tough ~ Cheers to your haibun ~
Haibun feels very rewarding to write. Gives a great opportunity to express myself.
Well done. These stories of expectation and heartbreak very poignant. I am thinking of a novel – I think the God of Small Things? But you tell your version wonderfully well. k.
yes something like that was in the back of my head, stories of such hope and disappointment are eternal
I am in awe of your haiku…all three wonderful. The first is my favorite. “Rising sun” feels like such hope.
Thank you. writing haibun is such a nice form… it lifts the haiku I think
Quite often the best part of travelling is returning to the familiarity of home and family. Lovely writing Bjorn
Yes I think so too.. but if you never leave you would be constantly disappointed too
I was swept up into your story…I agree w/ yerpirate – a dreamy quality …
Thank you 🙂
I like the combination of forms. Story is personal and captivating. Glad that your experiences of travel can change for the better.
Haibun is a great format. Invented by Basho so it works well… I tried to write the prose poetic to fit with the flow.
Well penned ~ wonder how much is fiction ~ certainly inspiring ~ ever evolving ~ ^_^
Thank you. It’s pure fiction, except in the sense of a relief in coming home again.
I love the combination of prose and haiku. This is dreamlike and hopeful.
haibun is a great form, and by doing the prose poetic. It merges nicely to a unique form. Thank you 🙂
Great storytelling prose, Bjorn! Very enjoyable read!
Thank you. i like this form a lot.
There is a lot to this: coming to grips with disappointment and turning it into appreciation of the old.
And I really like the haibun effect.
Thank you. yes I think the combo really is a nice effect. Haibun is a form that goes back to Basho so it’s not new, just forgotten.
A clear future is such a relief! (I speak from the murkiness of the unknown.)
Awakening
Clear future is unknown until you have made all mistakes…
Firstly I do love haibun, and you’ve written a fabulous one… it’s so hard making changes but I’m glad you found a future clear at home… a lovely closing to any journey!
Thank you. I love writing fiction and haiku, so for me it’s the perfect combo.
Finding one’s way home can be such a relief! You’ve used the haibun very effectively!Sudden Sun
Thank you .. yes to find the right way you have to make a few wrong turns.
Bjorn, you never disappoint.
So pleased you brought this home to us 🙂
Awakenings
Thank you.. I liked to share this a lot
A journey to new awakening..I always enjoy your work..
Thank you 🙂 I enjoy writing this
I love the combination of forms, Bjorn. The embedded haiku takes on a dreamlike quality, and the photo creates an effective haibun hiatus (!) in the fiction. Wonderfully woven.
Thank you.. I took a lot of care on the prose to make it smooth against the haiku.
Great blending of forms, and one that got me “oh wow”ing out loud.
Thank you. Haibun has a long tradition, but I think it has only recently been rediscovered.
Found your way there and back, quite the great expressed trip at your shack
A lovely shack indeed 🙂
I think this is a superb haibun!
Thank you.. very much
I loved it, especially how you brought out the sense of smell in
“smell of sunshine
replaced by garbage fumes
awake in cardboard box”
(I slept with the door open for the first night this year, and I woke up to the city’s many scents… So your words fit well in my day.)
Thank you.. yes I have a weakness for smell and colour in poetry.
your haibun is really effective with this deeply human topic. the last three stanzas feel esp. strong and image-rich. thank you.
Thank you. The haibun format lends itself so well to travel descriptions I think. And despite it’s fiction I thought about parallels you could make.
A compelling narrative, neatly coming full circle, with the added short verse, a rich painting of the way we think of our lives .
Thank you.. yes this very much a full circle.
Nice to see a good use made of this form
Thank you.. the form brings me a great set of joy.
I love your haibun combined with the haiku, or does haibun actually mean the story accompanied with the haiku. I had looked it up but this busy weekend has left me unsure of what I have read. lol. I loved the imagery. Your words let the reader know the hope, despair and hope again that was experienced along with the trial and inner struggle. I have often counseled my children and grands on the fact that we cannot escape our problems as we take them with us so may as well resolve our issues before we venture out from home. Your story told is so beautifully.
Well the haibun is a piece of prose and haiku that goes together – I have chosen to weave them together, which works for me – thank you for your nice words.
very cool. Nicely penned. Thanks
Thank you 🙂
I find this very refreshing in its juxtaposition of dream and real world images. The notion of taking off and flying to New destinations seems to merge with a dream about the final destination. Those juxtapositions lend an air of mystery that I find very appealing.
Thank you.. at the root of it is the change and what drives humans.
I love the play between poetry and prose, reality and dream/memory… Loss and hope combined.
Thank you. I like the form of expression, and it’s one I want to develop further.
this haibun really left me speechless.. so i have a hard time commenting. really in awe of this piece
Thank you 🙂
Thank you.. your are much to kind, but key to me is to put some poetry into the prose…
You are writing in excellent form these days; and I think the phrase I’m looking for is “the destination is the journey”??? Does that fit? I hear you, then.
Yes.,. and in reality it’s against my sentiment where the journey is the destination.
Beautiful way of balancing through emotions and letting us walk along, feeling them to the very depth. Disappointments die indeed, even when memories are still alive.
Thank you… it was an interesting haibun to write. I tried to keep the prose poetic to go smoothly with the haiku,
Disappointments die. A lovely phrase.