Coloring Book – A Japanese Haibun
After a year of preparation I was finally going to be seeing my first counseling client. There was a knock on the door and she entered….and immediately my heart fell. She was eleven years old and I had never had any classes on counseling children. I was dumbfounded, but….. I was also a dad….. so I improvised and found a grief coloring book for her to work on. She began to talk about her mom who had died in her mid 40’s of cancer as she colored. Her mother had been put in the hospital nine months ago. She had not been allowed to visit her. Her father was afraid it would upset her to see her mother in that condition and her father did not like unpleasant emotions.
As she colored she began to cry and feeling overwhelmed I cried as well. For some reason this made her feel better…..I seemed to model for her that it is ok to cry. Her face still wet with tears she smiled at me after the first session and seemed to feel better. She began to come on a regular basis and talked more about her anger, at her dad, at the cancer and at God. Eventually with her emotions unleashed they began to spill out at home. Her father called and canceled all her appointments.
Pictures colored
Black and red…spilling outside lines
Blotted with wet marks
*Stephen W. Leslie has been writing haiku and haibun poetry for nearly twelve years. For thirty eight years he has practiced daily meditation and haiku poetry was a natural outcome of his heightened sensitivity. His haiku poetry has been published both in Japan and in the United States. About ten years ago he began experimenting with writing haibun poems, four of which have been published by Contemporary Haibun Online. He is the winner of the 2011 silver medal in haiku poetry from Kusamakura International Poetry Competition (Japan).
