Haibun: Awake

You, O Opossum, are slinking along the edges of the building in the faint light of morning. Aren’t you nocturnal? Shouldn’t you be deep in a hole, sleeping? You’re so sly, pausing behind a spider plant when you notice me noticing you. You grow impatient, then bold, and finally sprint across the path to the next building. Is it the smell of frying bacon that makes you scuttle off that way, I wonder?

I continue my walk, turn a corner, and see the full moon framed perfectly between the dark, green leaves and the luminescent, purple clusters of bougainvillea blossoms. the face of the moon my mother’s face over the baby’s cradle

October Amber Ridge