A State of Friendship ~ #011 April 2014 – Haiga/Haibun Thinking Week #14: Literature Week (and) NaPoWriMo 2014
Crossing Fences
connection. how are we alike? a shared moment. a moment with or without words. a hand that reaches out to help. it all works. toward friendship.
not long after moving into this house i’m out in the yard. working. cutting a blossoming vine back. or weeding. it’s mid-summer. it’s hot.
i’ve spoken to my neighbor a few times. we say hi over the fence. i see him working in his yard. we mention the weather.
this one mid-summer day. i’m dripping. when he calls my name. i look up. he has a beer in his hand. he gestures toward me. i’m confused for a moment. i think he needs a hand with something. it was such an unexpected thing. then i notice his other hand holds a beer as well. he has a beer in each hand. he gestures again. no words. just this motion with his hand around the beer. i’m still not sure. i walk over. he extends the beer across the fence. i’m wordless.
to this day i can not remember what we spoke about after i accepted that beer. the yard. the sun. the time of year. this plant or that one. yet as clear as an autumn bell i can remember his hand making that wordless gesture.
i take care of his yard while he’s away. he takes care of mine. we each have a key to the other house. i take his visiting grandson in for art lessons one summer. and another to the beach as no one in his family swims. we swap fruit from our yards when we have something growing or ripe or something extra. mangoes. avocados. oranges, limes. when i pause to think about it there is a long list of these moments that begin to return to me.
years later. after many exchanges. i remember that gesture with the beer in his hand—and a few others we have exchanged—wordlessly. it was his gesture that day that cemented our friendship. i’m glad we became friends.
mango friendship
a gesture over the fence
with a beer
…≤≥…
Digital Drawing and Painting
- 8 x 12 Inches @ 300 ppi
- Zen Brush App
- ScratchCam App
- Perfect Effects 8
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 12
This is my response to the Haibun Thinking blog: Week #14 – April 22, 2014 Literature Week prompt.
You are invited to respond to the Haibun Thinking blog prompts each week. You are invited to read the response to these prompts by other writers as well (click on the Links in Collection buttons) and have fun of course.
This is also a response for National Poetry Writing Month 2014 (NaPoWriMo 2014). I hope to contribute at least one poetic writing each day—although I will post these on my blog only as I post (which currently is about 2-4 times a week).
∆≤≥∆
A 19 Planets Art Blog 2010/2023 