The rains fall from the clouds adding to the late summer humidity rather than easing it. I sit in the backyard watching puddles form in the spaces between the stones, watering the weeds that fought their way through.  Thunder sounds in the distance but too far to cause worry, as if thunder for me ever did.

I should be here with a beer, she’d have smiled at that, but I never did like beer. If I had my choice it would be a nice pina colada or margarita. “Fruity drinks” as she called them. She enjoyed a good beer. A nice cold beer on a hot day in the rain. Days like today were made for her.

I remember her

Sweet whiskey burn on my tongue

I drank her daily

I stick my feet out from under the umbrella, getting them wet. Rain running over my toes, washing me like a loving Jesus. My sins run deeper than that. They always have. She’d say they’d catch up with me one of these days. Little could I have guessed that they’d not only catch me but pass me by. Grinning bastards waving as they drive off in the distance; with her.

I can’t wait to kiss

Between the trunks of the trees

Dew from the bushes

I’m getting old. Ha! Gotten old. Sitting in the rain remembering yesterday like a movie playing on a curtain of raindrops. Wistful thoughts as likely as fairies come to dance underneath mushroom umbrellas. Not the way I thought I’d spend an hour, much less a day. Who knew the draw of memories could be so enticing? One hell of a drug is right, nostalgia.

Worse ways to spend an afternoon that’s for sure; like sitting in jail, or in the emergency room waiting to get a bullet taken out of your gut. I run my thumb over the old scar. Yeah, definitely worse ways. Though I can’t say if being dead is worse or better. I’d ask her, she’d know. But I’m too afraid she’d answer back.

Echoes of passion

Across the room and our bed

Our bodies create 

Come and crescendo

Drops of sweat like rain fall down

And create puddles

Memories release

That which is hidden below

Moons rise like the tide

I hear the grandkids screaming as they enter the house. Soon they come running out into the rain, heedless of the wet. 

“Grandpa! Grandpa!”

I look up and see her standing in the doorframe shaking her head smiling. Not the ghost of yesterday but an angel of the present. Yesterday’s ghost rests on my shoulder. I smile and wave as I take the children in my arms, the rain drops that missed me for an hour ride their small bodies to finally get me wet. 

“Come on. Let’s get inside and out of the rain. It’s not fit outside here for man or beast. [only memories]”

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This is a prompt from dVerse. To write a haibun about the shifting of seasons. With this piece I took the meaning of shifting of seasons a few ways. And took liberty with the haikus in that they are not all strictly nature based. Hope you enjoy.

New to haibun? The form consists of one to a few paragraphs of prose—usually written in the present tense—that evoke an experience and are often non-fictional/autobiographical. They may be preceded or followed by one or more haiku—nature-based, using a seasonal image—that complement without directly repeating what the prose stated.

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