Kathy Nguyen sponsored a haibun contest on her Origami Lotus Poetry blog this summer. The rules were challenging. Three haibun were to be written, each on a specified theme, and the resultant haibun were judged as a set. I am pleased to have received “Runner-Up” in this contest. This is the second of my three, also written “on-site”:
(THEME: Summer or spring)
Back in Time
As I step off the airplane into the glaring sunlight, I feel like I’m stepping into perpetual summer. California always has that effect on me. But it’s an illusion. When the sun sets and the evening fog rolls in like clockwork over the foothills every afternoon, it is as cold and dark here as anywhere I’ve ever been. Somewhere in those dark hills is the double-wide grave marker with my parents’ names on it that I won’t be visiting this time around. But I hardly need to anymore. Their spirits live everywhere around here–in the sunlit live oaks, in the golden hills, in the elusive scents of eucalyptus and wild sage, and in every place that we ever drove through or walked along together.
home again
the sun glinting
off the Golden Gate
Prose Posies 
Dear Cara, Beautiful. I feel the same about my parents. Blessings, Ellen
Thank you, Ellen. I felt so conflicted about not being able to visit their graves on my last visit, until I realized I was paying homage to them simply by being there and carrying them in my heart.