One, or: Out of many

Posted on by ben Alexander

A haibun

While I was growing up in the USA, my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents on my mother’s side of the family were all living in Israel. Still, as an only child whose father’s family remained trapped in the USSR until it began falling apart in the late 1980’s, my Israeli family was all I had; and feeling myself a beloved member of that family was a major part of my identity.

For various reasons, including the deaths of my grandparents, the ties that once held our family together frayed, almost to the point of breaking in some cases (and, sadly, beyond that point in some others).

Throughout the years, and pretty much throughout the duration of my life, which has spanned more than four decades, it has been my aunt Dina, my mother’s younger sister, who has served as the glue that’s kept our family together. In some part, this was because she and her family lived with my grandparents; but, now, as an adult, I’ve come to understand that it was also because our family has always been one of her very top priorities; and she has always gone above and beyond to preserve it.

While our family continues, seemingly inevitably, to drift apart; and my childhood concept of it has long since dissipated into smoke, my aunt Dina has come to represent familial love in my mind. We don’t see her often enough, but, these days, when I think of “family”, she is the first who comes to my heart.

lone, nearly bare branch
reluctantly releases leaves
to preserve its life

Go Dog Go Cafe’s Haibun Wednesday

  • This week’s prompt is to write a haibun about a relationship of yours.
  • From Poetry.org:
    • In How to Haiku, Bruce Ross writes, “If a haiku is an insight into a moment of experience, a haibun is the story or narrative of how one came to have that experience.”

Let’s write poetry together!

When it comes to partnership, some humans can make their lives alone – it’s possible. But creatively, it’s more like painting: you can’t just use the same colours in every painting. It’s just not an option. You can’t take the same photograph every time and live with art forms with no differences.

–Ben Harper (b. 1969)

Would you like to create poetry with me and have a completed poem of yours featured here at the Skeptic’s Kaddish? I am very excited to have launched the ‘Poetry Partners’ initiative and am looking forward to meeting and creating with you… Check it out!

43 thoughts on “One, or: Out of many”

  5. This is lovely, David. I can relate to those feelings of fraying and the inevitable sadness that goes with it. But thank goodness for the Aunt Dinas of this world. And what a beautiful Haiku!

  6. We all could use an Aunt Dina (sadly, my own family doesn’t have one and has fractured beyond repair). Your haiku is startlingly beautiful, David. I mean, as in stopping-me-in-my-tracks beautiful. What a precious gem you’ve crafted! 🙂

  11. lone, nearly bare branch
    reluctantly releases leaves
    to preserve its life

    late, last leaves scatter
    branch bare –
    new life flowing…

    thanks for writing an aspect of your story, David.

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