It's Still Life

5 March/22:
Hope is a free-radical. It’s the beginning of loss. It exists to mark where loss begins. I’m beginning to think that hope is the beginning of every loss. The beginning of anything that we’re attached to. Freedom. Life. Liberty. Family. We get used to loss, although I tend to lose things slowly. Losing things slowly is hope, I guess – it’s like winning. How’s it going, I ask my neighbour. Slowly, he says, but we’re hopeful. I’m not one for losing, but I love to lose myself in the music of wind through trees, birdsong, and nature’s skin. But lately, hope is dimming, and the losses mount up.

The air fills with war
A ship slips away to sea
We hope it returns

Written for GoDogGo Café Haibun Wednesday. I struggled today to focus on ‘hope’ or ‘joy’. The world is deplete of it. I did manage to include some trees and birdsong in this one – Those things do give me joy, but again … it’s spilling down rain, blowing a gale, and birdsong’s gone quiet. Photo by Samuel Ferrara on Unsplash.  ©Misky 2022 Shared with #amwriting #haibun on Twitter