WHC New Year's Eve Haibun Kukai

WHC HAIBUN KUKAI
  FIRST PLACE
SECOND PLACE
THIRD PLACE
SPECIAL AWARD
HONORABLE MENTION 1
HONORABLE MENTION 2
HONORABLE MENTION 3

 

  HONORABLE MENTION 2

FIRST LETTER
Debra Woolard Bender
1-1-01

This is the first time our two grown children are both together with us for winter holidays in several years. Our four grandchildren spend the afternoon of New Years Eve together, ravaging the house. My husband cooks dinner, the house is full of the noise of children, Christmas toys with obnoxious sounds and the proverbial televised football game. Our daughter takes her boys home as the afternoon ends, leaving her daughter to play with her cousin. They are close in age. The girls play until bedtime. Having risen early on New Years Eve morning with a bout of insomnia, by the time midnight approaches, I am fighting sleep. Side by side, I writing haiku on my computer, he searching the internet for information pertinent to his website on his dad's computer...

good bye year
when did my only son
become a man?

Ten, nine, eight, seven... the ball...six...five...four...drops...three...to the final...two... countdown number...one. Son jabbers on the phone with his wife, who has spent the weekend with her mother. I finish the clear, tart puddle of Riesling at the bottom my goblet and rise to kiss my husband.

last night
the old year pops
into infinity

Sudden wakening: An early morning phone call rattles its alarm at the bedside. Our daughter is asking could I babysit the two boys. She has discovered their daycare center is closed for the holiday...it is still dark outside.

new year
the house fills
with unexpected guests

Before she arrives, I unlock the front door, and return to snuggle under warm covers. A few minutes later, the door opens, and she hustles our two grandsons into a spare bedroom. Our housecat jumps off our bed and disappears. She has taken to hiding under our bed over the last four days. This behavior is due to the recent invasion of her domain by another, unknown female cat. Due to her fear, in sympathy, my husband placed a box of fresh kitty litter by a closet for our "'fraidy-cat", just in case.

early dawn
the visiting cat poops
in our bedroom

Let me explain. We live in a subdivision where neighbors are nodding acquaintances. One of them left their cat outside when they evidently went on vacation for Christmas and New Years holidays. It has been freezing weather in the normally balmy state of Florida. Their cat was on a bench outside our front window several days ago. At first, not knowing who she belonged to, I invited her in and examined the tags on her collar. Louisiana. When I asked around, I learned she belongs to the young woman who moved into the house up the street when her mother died. The visiting cat gets along famously with our dog. And so, this small, fat, black and white calico has made herself quite at home in our house, usurping our old housecat's place of sole authority, as well as claiming the litter box in a back storage room. That room's door was accidentally left shut all night. The smell drives us into unwelcome awareness.

blasted *red devils
the stray I took in
is pregnant

* red firecrackers spent on New Years Eve.

The guests are fast asleep, pets with them, the two little girls in a big bed, with one of the little boys stretched out by their feet. The youngest boy is in another room on his own. Grown, whiskered son is snoring in his dad's recliner. Television and computers are still on as I walk by carrying the fragrant, steaming box of newly christened cat litter to the storage room where it belongs. Husband and I, side by side at our networked computers, early in the morning...he, emptying his computer of unnecessary junk, and I, filling mine with more poetry...

happy new year
2001 reasons to live
another day