{"id":310,"date":"2011-07-08T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=310"},"modified":"2020-12-14T13:43:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T13:43:51","slug":"a-haibun-from-stephen-w-leslie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/a-haibun-from-stephen-w-leslie\/","title":{"rendered":"A haibun from Stephen W Leslie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\" size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Red Tailed Hawk<\/span><br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>On the way to work I noticed a largebird by the side of Route 66.&nbsp;&nbsp; On a sudden impulse I pulledover.&nbsp;&nbsp; It was a large red tailed hawk decked in a gorgeous mane ofwhite and brown feathers.&nbsp; One inch claws clenched, his yellow eyesclosed, his body crumpled \u2026.face down in the asphalt.&nbsp;&nbsp; Eighteenwheelers roared by, their backwash ruffling his feathers.&nbsp; Wearing workgloves I placed the hawk on the car floor, as I leave a young female red tailedhawk, glided by low, as if saying goodbye to her mate.&nbsp; Two more younghawks watched from the trees.<br \/>For the rest of the day I drovearound with his body.&nbsp; The only scent was the smell of fall leaves. Perhaps it was my imagination but I felt I heard the ever so faint whisper ofmy Native ancestors as I drove.&nbsp;&nbsp; Arriving home I gently placed hisbody in the shed, to keep the wandering dogs away.<br \/>Sunday night, when it was dark I lita bundle of desert sage and approached the hole I had earlier dug.&nbsp; I laid him in that shallow grave, chanting a sacred mantra\u2026.. as the nearlyfull moon rose directly overhead in the clear starlit sky.&nbsp;&nbsp; As faintwisps of sage smoke lingered, I played the wooden flute softly, then with mybare hands buried this beautiful creature.<br \/>Although I would have liked one ofhis tail feathers, I refrained, not wanting to desecrate his body. <br \/>My ancestors agreed\u2026.. <br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>Swooping and gliding <br \/>Now buried near my garden <br \/>One day\u2026.my turn too <\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">*Stephen W. Leslie<\/span> has been writing haibun and haiku poetry for ten years.&nbsp; He has been published at <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Contemporary Haibun Online<\/span>, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The Himalayan Journal<\/span> and <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">World Haiku Review<\/span>.&nbsp;&nbsp; He is a hospice chaplain in upstate New York and has a number of degrees which he uses in place of wallpaper.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Red Tailed Hawk<\/span> was first published by Contemporary Haibun Online.<\/font><font size=\"0\"><font><span style=\"font-size: 9pt;\"><b><\/b><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Red Tailed Hawk&nbsp;On the way to work I noticed a largebird by the side of Route 66.&nbsp;&nbsp; On a sudden impulse I pulledover.&nbsp;&nbsp; It was a large red tailed hawk decked in a gorgeous mane ofwhite and brown feathers.&nbsp; One inch claws clenched, his yellow eyesclosed, his body crumpled \u2026.face down in the asphalt.&nbsp;&nbsp; Eighteenwheelers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haibun-tanka-haiku-haiga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24046,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/24046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}