cabin in the woods
dented bucket, rusty spoon—
mom’s old button tin
This falling-down cabin by Lake Monroe reminds of times when I was a child and we went exploring through our far-suburban Pennsylvania fields and woods.
Once, we came upon on old house, abandoned also, with damp newspapers everywhere. They were no more than eight or ten years old, but to a grade-school kid they seemed imbued with history. Also, the house with its open roof seemed lonely as if it were calling out to its former inhabitants.
Another place we liked to roam was a giant old barn with only half a roof and missing floor boards on every level. It was a place that seemed to promise disasters of all kinds: broken bones from falling through a missing floor, tetanus from rusty nails, a police siren wailing to advertise our trespassing. But luckily, none of those bad things ever happened. Instead, there was one wonderful rope swing that you could jump up and clutch and swing over space that was once home to horses and cows.
And what, you might ask, does this have to do with haiku? Only that sense elements--this fall of light on old wood, the smell of dampness and decay, a child's toy (leaf-molded, poking up out of the ground) happen in this moment but also take us back to similar moments from long ago. The best haiku end with the resonance of a bell ringing, one moment leading to another, to another, to the next.
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