Haibun #6: The Great Fire

February is National Haiku Writing Month! This haibun, a poetry form combining prose and haiku, features three haiku and is a tribute to my late grandmother and her life as a light-aircraft-pilot-turned-mother-of-five in the tumultuous time between World War II and the Vietnam War:

The Great Fire

My grandmother was a pilot when she was young and flew light aircraft. I have a photo of her from the 1940s standing proudly next to her plane. She was a dreamer. The story my mother tells is that my grandmother was poor and deemed unworthy of marrying my grandfather. My grandfather is remembered as a war hero who was shot in the head on D-Day, survived, and earned a Purple Heart.

big sky

            prairielands reach

                        a time before I was born

They lived in a modest neighborhood outside of Washington, D.C., and had five children together, as good Catholics did in those days. My grandfather worked long hours at a grocery store, and he drank. A lot. For years, his doctor told him if he didn’t change, he’d have a heart attack. And he did. Twice. The second one sent him falling off the bed in the middle of the night. He hit his head on a dresser, waking everyone in the house. My mother, who was 16, came running and cradled him as he lay dying.

sliver of crescent moon
over tallgrass prairie…
a kingbird’s solitary perch

He left my grandmother with four children at home, one fighting a new war in Vietnam, and no money. Later in her life, my grandmother wrote a poem about how all she ever wanted was to be with him. She lived with my parents when I was a baby, took care of me while they worked, and died when I was five in a nursing home.

across a shimmering plain
wildflowers bend
into the prairie wind

"The Great Fire," copyright 2025 Amelia Cotter (first published in Bronze Bird Review, 2024)

Haibun #5: Lakeview, Chicago

For some folks, summers are hard. That seasonal depression hits different when the weather is warm and there's nowhere to go (or it feels that way, at least). I'm grateful for my mental health and relieved that the monster OCD relapse that inspired this old haibun has long passed:

Lakeview, Chicago

I used to think if I could just see the lake, I wouldn’t feel alone. From my eighteenth floor window, the despair nudges me closer to looking down.

this old feeling…
the ghosts I know
come home to haunt

"Lakeview, Chicago," copyright 2023 Amelia Cotter (first published in tinywords Issue 19.1, 2019)

Haibun #4: Anxiety

February is National Haiku Writing Month! This haibun (a poetry form combining prose and haiku) inspired me to assemble apparitions, a painstaking and revelatory process that took more than five years. I'm sharing "Anxiety" now in the spirit of choosing movement despite discomfort, and leaning into change when sameness can feel deceptively safe:

Anxiety

I wake up in the middle of the night and wonder if my life could go on without you. I imagine that you die, because those of us who live with anxiety are encouraged to imagine the disasters we obsess over not obsessing over. I visualize announcing your death to our friends and family on Facebook, requesting not to be private messaged about it, and being frustrated when everyone private messages me anyway. I visualize deleting my Facebook account…and the radio silence that follows. Meanwhile, you lie sleeping next to me, very much alive. I place my hand on your chest and feel your heartbeat. I cherish this heartbeat, but feeling it in my hand makes me uncomfortable.

my overuse of white-out

  lake-effect snow

"Anxiety," copyright 2023 Amelia Cotter (Third Place, 2016 Haiku Society of America Best Unpublished Haibun Awards and Frogpond 39.3, 2016)

Guest Post: Ghosts in the Machine, by Jenene Ravesloot

Note from Amelia: An early part of the apparitions project involved collecting the poetry and photography of other talented writers and artists to share as part of a greater anthology. This component of the project didn't quite come together for many reasons, but I wanted to share the finest work Jonathan and I received as part of our celebration of the book's publication and this incredible year of poetry. I'm sharing this spring and summer series alphabetically by last name. Today's layered, personal haibun, "Ghosts in the Machine," was written by Chicago poet Jenene Ravesloot, one my poetry collaborators and mentors:

Ghosts in the Machine

12/01/2016 PROCEDURE: CT Chest WO Contrast.
LUNGS/CENTRAL AIRWAYS: There is a 1.1 cm right upper lobe spiculated nodule corresponding to the abnormal chest x-ray. There are small satellite nodules adjacent to it.
CONCLUSIONS: 1.1 cm right upper lobe nodule with adjacent satellite lesions. Differential diagnosis includes lung cancer or an active granulomatous process. Recommend a PET scan.

breathing in and out
breathing in and out and in
practicing Zen breath

12/23/2016 PROCEDURE: PET/CT Skull to Thigh.
IMPRESSION: The F-18 FDG PET/CT study demonstrates metabolic activity in the 1cm right upper lobe pulmonary nodule, which is indeterminate for malignancy. If there is a strong clinical suspicion that this could represent an early malignancy, tissue sampling is suggested. Alternatively, follow-up PET/CT imaging in 6 months to one year is suggested to assess for any change in size or metabolic activity. There is no abnormal metabolic activity identified elsewhere in the chest, abdomen, or pelvis.

a small gift from you
a glass globe of swirling snow
many emotions

6/1/2017 PROCEDURE: CT Chest WO Contrast.
CONCLUSIONS: A 15 mm right upper lobe ground-glass nodule is stable from 12/1/2016. Given the size and morphology, this likely represents low-grade lung cancer. Multiple additional ground-glass and solid nodules measuring up to 4 mm are stable.

unable to sleep
the sound of a car alarm
this watchful waiting

11/27/2017 CT Chest WO Contrast.
CONCLUSIONS: A right upper lobe sub-solid nodule measures 18mm compared to 17 mm on 12/1/2016. Given the morphology, this is suspicious for low-grade lung cancer. The differential includes focal fibrosis. Multiple additional ground-glass and solid nodules measuring up to 4 mm are stable.

the final report
surgery recommended
lung cancer likely

"Ghosts in the Machine," copyright 2022 Jenene Ravesloot

Guest Post: Selected Poems, by Tim Gardiner

Note from Amelia: An early part of the apparitions project involved collecting the poetry and photography of other talented writers and artists to share as part of a greater anthology. This component of the project didn't quite come together for many reasons, but I wanted to share the finest work Jonathan and I received as part of our celebration of the book's publication and this incredible year of poetry. I'm sharing this spring and summer series alphabetically by last name. Today's beautiful poems, "a tsunami" (tanka), "Hangman's Hill" (haibun), and "wind chimes" (haiku), come to us from longtime friend and fellow poet Tim Gardiner:

a tsunami
warning sign
on the shore...
            what happens to those
            who cannot run away

--

Hangman’s Hill

I drop the handbrake and wait. Slowly my car begins to roll uphill towards the hanging tree. So the legend is true; the hangman’s ghost is dragging me to eternity. I glance at the rope on the rear seat, moonlight glinting off its grain, throwing out a surfeit of shadows. Reaching the hanging tree, bent double and alone on the hillside, I pull on the brake. On closer inspection, the distant lights of city skyscrapers don’t seem to touch the bark of this isolated hawthorn. My last thought is of a small boy, cocooned in childhood, playing cricket on the beach until the evening comes.

just an illusion
the hill’s dark secret

--

wind chimes...

someone else’s tragedy

hangs from a yew

Dr. Tim Gardiner is an ecologist, editor, essayist, poet, and children’s author from Manningtree in Essex, UK. He has been widely published in journals and anthologies. He is a former co-editor of the tanka prose section of  Haibun Today and now edits a poetry column for the punk fanzine  Suspect Device.

"a tsunami," "Hangman's Hill," and "wind chimes," copyright 2022 Tim Gardiner

Haibun #3: Hibernaculum

In the spirit of the strength and resiliency that we could all use a little more of right now:

Hibernaculum

My weapons come with me everywhere I go.
I am ready for the fight, come lightness or weight of days.

spring thaw—
the barren ground swells
beneath a billowing sky

"Hibernaculum," copyright 2020 Amelia Cotter (first published in Black Bough Poetry Issue 1, 2019)

Haibun #2: We Are Made of Star Stuff

Because holidays with the family aren't always easy:

We Are Made of Star Stuff

She becomes the chair she sits in, the drapes on the window, the wallpaper, the wall. She doesn’t get to fall apart. She gets to absorb, to recalibrate. She isn’t going to yell. In fact, she isn’t even going to cry (she hopes). And she knows she isn’t going to leave. She has nothing to threaten with. She becomes the chair she sits in.

windswept plain…
sage-grouse gather
beneath the morning moon

"We Are Made of Star Stuff," copyright 2018 Amelia Cotter (Editor’s Choice, Haibun, cattails April 2018 Edition)

Haibun #1: Honeymoon

In celebration of my and Jonathan's wedding anniversary this month, and so much more:

Honeymoon

When I sense the disquiet turning all the way up, he reminds me, "There's a reason you survived cancer. There's a reason I survived drinking."

tussock grass…
the lives of lizards

"Honeymoon," copyright 2018 Amelia Cotter (first published in Frogpond 40.1, 2017)