haibun for jerry

   I sit next to him at my first haiku meeting. He reminds me of my late grandfather in appearance and manner: whistling dentures, thinning hair, quick to laugh. We have had many adventures since.
   One time, I drive us to a San Francisco Giants game. On the drive, we talk about his cancer climb up Mount Fuji, recite favorite haiku, curse like old soldiers and compare medical conditions.

prostate exam
the doctor and I
trade jabs

   Arriving in The City hours before the game, we go to a small Asian café across from Willie Mays’ statue. Sitting with him as he sips coffee and eats a pastry, sharing stories of his bartending days when he knew The Yankee Clipper and many 49ers players. Listening, feeling surreal, as if sitting with Hemingway in Sloppy Joe’s bar hearing an oral history of war dispatches, African safaris and bullfights. I recall some of the books he has given me: a Hemingway biography (complete with five Bosc pear stickers plastered inside the front cover) and Nick Virgilio’s Selected Haiku with the Mass of Resurrection typed on crisp, yellowed paper tucked inside (I begged not to accept such a memento, but he insisted) ...
   A ship’s deep horn in the distance ... baseball fans with multicolored hair drift by the window ... a thread of Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” wafts through the open door ... a customer orders a latte with a growl like Chewbacca’s in the Star Wars bar scene ... game time nears.

   The game is eventful. Barry Bonds hits a home run. We lose a smuggled can of root beer to a Pac Bell Park attendant. I narrowly miss a foul ball trying to reach around my haiku friend. We are like two old fishermen not caring if we catch anything.
   Heading home, he is quiet, reading some of my haibun. We fill each other with laughter and stories of people no longer with us. I drop him off at his house and feel I soon will be losing something of myself.

names of the dead
comparing wars
and soldiers lost

haibun for jerry, Modern Haiku 33.1 (Winter-Spring 2002)
and small events: haibun by w. f. owen (Red Moon Press, 2007, pp. 40-41).

his mark

   My friend and haiku mentor Jerry says on the phone that he feels he’s about to “crash and burn.” That’s the way he hopes to go. All I can do is sigh and silently agree with him. Make your mark, don’t linger.

a trace of dust
on the window screen
autumn butterfly

 (For Jerry Kilbride).

his mark, Frogpond XXIX: 1 (Winter 2006) and
small events: haibun by w. f. owen (Red Moon Press, 2007, p. 55).