Scifaibun (A Haibun-Based Scifi-Fantasy Poetry Form)

In an earlier post I spoke about scifaiku. Today’s post shares one of my attempts at scifaibun, a form based on haibun (one or more poetic paragraphs with a capping haiku; see link at end of article for a haibun web site).

Scifaibun is a delightful form to write in. My brief comments follow it.

A CHANGE OF HEART
(from an alien point of view)

We are happily drinking the rising light when the foreign thing crashes through us, scattering poisonous shadows. Our ancestral stories speak of such things: solids, carrying even stranger solids – living things who are able to breathe in either light or shadow:

filling in
the wound of passage:
light heals all

We are briefly shocked – a rare feeling indeed – when a small solid separates from the larger solid. Although this little solid does not allow light to travel through it, its surface carries light, as it hovers quietly, bobbing:

oh, this “I”
is so lonely!
darkness looms

We turn to feeding on the joyous light, disturbed as the small solid’s feelings of separateness spread rapidly among us. They are so dense, these feelings. Will they block the light? Then it leaps:

the solid enters
our tumbling joy:
shadows burn away

The little solid spins madly, radiating fear. But what can it possibly be afraid of here? We are in joy, feeding together, singing to and through each other. This is the state we endlessly create, in spite of returning shadows, in spite of the dark’s cold fingers:

the solid’s fear
chills us:
joy is fleeting

We have no concept for this return of our songs from the outside of the solid in our midst, mixed with its fading fear. We have only "through" and "toward" and "with" for singing. But trailing our songs returned by the solid comes a new conception:

we are a-tremble
with this discovery:
this cry, this "echo"

And, oh, the small solid’s song of fear vibrates on to a new level, thrilling through us with our mutual delight at new understandings:

the solid knows!
the giving
is the song

Our old heart bursts the eons of memories it holds for us diffused easily into our nearest nascent heart. We trill our old one’s death joy:

hearts change
the songs
go on forever

* * * *

This resulted from a suggestion to the scifaiku group to write a scifaibun from an alien viewpoint. In mine above, the alternating paragraphs and scifaikus can read a bit like a "call and response" piece. The paragraphs being the chorus, and the scifaikus being individual voices crystallizing the point.

* * * *

May we all sing our songs of changing.

Resource: Contemporary Haibun Online.

‘til next time, keep dreaming,

Roswila
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FUTURE POST(S):Using Your Dreams to Create Poetry & Stories (4 fun exercises); Using Tarot With Dreams That Got Away. * * * *