Haiga - Night Watchman

Haiga by Dan Hardison

Cattails
April 2022

In the Night

Gathered as a family watching television, a passing siren fills the air. More sirens follow and they stop down the street. A phone call confirms - the Institute is on fire. A school building over a hundred and twenty years old, it has been some twenty-five years since students graced its halls. Even in its sad state of neglect, it is majestic with stonewalls and castle like towers and turrets.

        tattered leaves
        covering the ground . . .
        faded dreams

We walk the two blocks and watch from the sidewalk. The massive walls engulfed in flames crash to the ground in a spray of sparks. Nothing can be saved. It is just a decaying old building lost to time and flames, but for a six-year old, it will remain forever.

        for a moment
        the world stands still . . .
        daydream

— Dan Hardison

Cattails
April 2022

Top photo: Columbia Institute postcard (unused 1930-1945)
Bottom photo: 1959 Aerial photo after the fire at the Columbia Institute

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The image is from my first handmade Christmas card, 1997.

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What Lies Ahead

 

Out for a walk through the neighborhood, I notice a piece of paper in the grass by the sidewalk. Picking it up, I see that it is a page from a book, the edges burned. I look around. The house on the corner has a collapsed roof, blackened windows, soot stains streaking the yellow brick and white wood trim. Again, I look at the page in my hand, the title barely readable along the top, “If The Bomb Gets Out Of Hand.”

        cloaked
        in morning fog . . .
        secrets untold

— Dan Hardison

Contempary Haibun Online
Issue 17.3, 2021