When the pen takes control.

As had now become customary for the young Uddala, he was seated cross-legged on the dry ground in his favourite spot, to observe the daily miracle of Sunrise. Forty feet below, carved on the steep, sandstone bluff, the face of the “Buddha,” stared serenely over the plain to the East, his delicately carved hands clasped and intertwined in supplication far below.

“Older than time itself,” the villagers had told Uddala to cover their lack of knowledge of the mysterious sculptors responsible for the striking images, with some believing and others sceptical that they could be a natural phenomenon carved over millennia by the action of the winds and ancient rains.

All Uddala knew was that seated here on his lofty perch he was able to contemplate, meditate and continue in his search for Nirvana. He closed his eyes and with his mouth forming an, “O,” started his chant of, “Om”. A continuous monotone that would sometimes last for only two minutes but often more than one hour before, breaking from his trance-like state Uddala would excuse himself to the Buddha and the elements and depart.

Haibun

I awake with the dawn, rueing now my nocturnal voyage. One would suffice but I chose to torment all the shrill, cackling fowl, intoxicated by their blood. Soon they will come for me, baying and snarling. I am ready.

Over field and river,

I tease and lead the huntsmen

then find my refuge

Outside the window 

tall green willows sway and bow

in supplication 

The unseen relentless wind

enthrals us with it’s power