Haibun : Wedding Anniversary

Fifteenth wedding anniversary, cold clouded January morning. He wakes me with gladioli. Fixing tea, I wonder, after fifteen years doesn't he know I like tea and roses ? We quarrel over tea. He leaves for work to return an hour later. Let's go into the hills. More clouds. Shawls, rugs and umbrella in the car and we're off. At roadside café, sipping hot tea, we gaze at opposite hill. Floodlit by sun, appearing for seconds in patches the houses like icing sugar chalets in a fairy tale. Mellowed by warmth we drive on. Snow softened landscape, few people on road, muffled, head down streaming breaths. We make snow bunnies on the car, take photographs, leave bunnies on road side. A long walk under the pines. The mountainside drifts away in fog. Silence except for one raven which calls and calls. Soft plop of snow sliding off branches.

wedding anniversary
gladioli, not roses
at least he remembered.

* Published in frogpond XIX : 3