We have a guest prompter today at dVerse. Come find out who….hint: he’s from Australia. The theme is “waiting”. https://dversepoets.com/2017/01/23/haibun-monday-29/
The Waiting Game
You are gone. You got on that big plane and it took you back to Kyoto. You had lived in the US long enough to teach medicine at Duke, to move to Richmond and become a forensic pathologist, long enough to rescue me from an abusive relationship and for us to fall totally deeply wildly in love with each other. Twenty years in the US and then you moved back to Kyoto. What were you waiting for? Why did it take you so long to return? Was it me? I waited long nights for you to come home after taking apart the dead to find answers, to give names to the nameless, to convict the guilty and vindicate the innocent. You stayed long enough to teach me kendo, to use a katana, to properly cook rice, to learn the sensation of cherry blossoms falling on naked skin. I taught you to properly fry chicken, to savor a fresh summer tomato, the sensation of ice cube held within lips slipping over your skin. I waited for you to return; day after day after month after year after season. You wrote every week and I threw them all away. You waited on my reply. I waited for your return. We waited and waited and…
cherry blossoms on
naked skin – lips on mine –
seasons wait forever
kanzen sakura 
Jan 23, 2017 @ 23:02:13
That’s a heart wrenching haibun Toni, beautifully written with so much emotion conveyed so powerfully…thank you for your contribution, enjoyed it so much…also Kyoto is a beautiful place
Jan 23, 2017 @ 23:04:19
Yes it is a beautiful place but I prefer his native Hakone. Thank you for your kind words.
Jan 23, 2017 @ 23:02:26
Beautiful! This I can deeply understand….the waiting, the waiting, and it’s like you are posed,both of you….on the rim of the universe, and neither of you are breathing deeply….expecting the other to move first. And endless season of waiting that stretches across the oceans. For me, I feel this deep in the gut. A universal behavior that keeps hope alive.
Jan 23, 2017 @ 23:07:29
And now I am totally deeply wildly in love with my husband, but sometimes, I still sigh. Sometimes I still take my sword from its case and practice forms under our cherry trees
Jan 23, 2017 @ 23:09:45
I can understand that, Toni. I got a ghost in my bedroom, too. And when I think back….I wonder ‘what if’>???
Jan 23, 2017 @ 23:14:36
Yeppers…
Jan 24, 2017 @ 00:42:46
This is so sad. A parting like that is one of a lifetime, yet I feel that there is something left forever in the katana and the cherry blossom.
Jan 24, 2017 @ 02:27:30
It seems frustrating to wait and then not get what one waited for.
Jan 24, 2017 @ 03:55:19
Oh, Toni, this is so heartrendingly beautiful.
Jan 24, 2017 @ 08:22:12
Goes right into my heart. The waiting game can be long and desolate and really distressing. Love this one Toni!
Jan 24, 2017 @ 10:27:08
So much of this is so real to read…the feelings, the images, the longing. Especially these lines:
I waited for you to return; day after day after month after year after season. You wrote every week and I threw them all away. You waited on my reply. I waited for your return. We waited and waited and…
Thank you for posting, dear Toni. I hope you are having days of serenity, my friend.
Jan 24, 2017 @ 12:11:24
This is heartbreaking. Truly.
Jan 24, 2017 @ 12:17:41
This is both beautiful and sad …. a wonderful piece of writing that captures the intensity of the feeling behind it
Jan 24, 2017 @ 13:38:21
A very passionate piece of writing Toni and it feels so unnecessarily sad and laden with misunderstandings. His writing every week tells me he cared. Sending you hugs and love xxx
Jan 24, 2017 @ 15:14:16
Oh, this is such intense, raw emotion. I’m reading a novel “The Little Paris Bookstore” (or something like that). I know you don’t have an abundance of time right now, but it may resonate with your experience and provide you a few moments of escape each day.
Jan 24, 2017 @ 20:27:46
Oh my..the emotion is so palpable in this.
Jan 25, 2017 @ 11:53:58
Happy that you’ve let go and are now surrounded by your husband’s love. If you were still tearing up letters, I’d be overwhelmed with this tragic image of someone waiting forever. The memories were certainly inspirational in creating this passionate haibun. ❤
Jan 25, 2017 @ 12:21:03
A wonderful Haibun carved from the rock of your own experience which is what makes it so powerful.
‘What if’ is such an interesting concept. For me no part of me exists in a ‘what if’.
I am here because I made choices, responded to life’s prompts in the ways that I did…no accident…no ‘what if’
in science fiction there may be an infinite number of parallel universes where the infinite number of other me’s exist because of the ‘what if’s’ but that is an endless road to try and travel.( except for a story perhaps)