Bivouacked with books (a haibun)
November 28, 2006
Room close dark
dark, listening – white noise
and windchimes
From my perch, survey the still life before me – a didgeridoo leaning against a wormwood bookcase, 4 thick shelves made from free form curly maple looking like slabs of bacon, books stacked horizontally for easy reading of titles on spines; Ulysses, Siddhartha, Tolstoy, Salinger, Dr. Seuss, a stack about Everest, old Edmund Hillary grinning under shaggy beard and leather edged goggles. BhagavadGita, with dead,bald smiling, reincarnated onto the dust leaf resting, leaning next to Don Quixote, heavy in four volumes with hand-cut pages, raised ink, tissue protects the engravings.A collection (complete) of TinTin the intrepid reporter (Belgian I think), his dog Snowy and ornery ole Cap’n Haddock. More adventure than John McPhee, him traipsing from Alaska to Bangladesh – lonely freighter pulling out of dark harbors, a thousand iron feet long tended by six – maybe eight scattered souls. A Russian Matryoshka doll – endless stream of smaller beings, a lighter from Belikin – the state brewery of Belize, a metal Sierra Club cup, engraved with highest peak in Nevada and a date so long ago that I look at a photo to remember – me, head in clouds, wearing a sweater I forgot I ever wore. Picture is snowy, the tin cup stained withheat, left holding coins from here and there, a yo-yo, and buttons fallen off of trousers.
Room collecting stories
To tell you
Some other time
