Spring Break - a Haibun

                Nineteen 7^th graders, three mothers and a teacher board the snub-nosed Blue Bird school bus early Tuesday for a two-hour trip to Honors Contest, the highest level of choir competition in south Arkansas.

                At the edge of town, we turn south onto Highway 35, a winding state road to Sheridan.

                          around a curve...the petrified store...its green foliage background 

                Close to the fences, bushy pines--like caged animals begging--stretch branches to passersby. Further back, shrouded crowds of slender trunks reach for sun’s sustenance, green only at the tops. Dogwoods spatter shadowy trunks with winter white; holly bushes brighten the somberness.

two-lane

curves through timberland

many shades of green



                Neat homes with barns and gardens break up the miles of trees. In one yard, wood is already cut to fireplace lengths—a stack of parquetry curing for next winter.

wisteria still...sleeping in weathered frame...redbud shatters

                 At Sheridan, we turn east. The browns and grays of oak, elm and gum are flecked with chartreuse tints of hackberry, the fuschia of redbud, pink of peach, apricot of early maples. Orange-red sawbriars cling to lower branches, as if jealous of the new growth.

fractured deer stand

standing over the burned field

new ochre buds

                 We pass a Christmas-tree farm. Farther on, a pine—trimmed from the high-wire right-of-way—stands--an ancient bonsai giant. Furrows of freshly plowed garden spots stand ankle deep in rainwater.

greening pasture

school bus carcass

behind the feed shed

                 A two-story house rises from the woods, the cleared brush used as fencing. An old Cotton Belt train car now hawks used trucks.
                This side of Pine Bluff, a large white sign reads:  PENITENTIARY AREA/ BEWARE OF HITCHHIKERS

prisoner

of driver's C-W station

haiku hitchhiking

 * * *

[PL, from windfall persimmons; also published in CALLIOPE: A Writer's Workshop by Mail, Spring 2013, Issue 139]