one evening in late spring the storm of us arrived our words and actions carried lightning and our eyes shuddered with thunder but God from whom all blessings flow was there the whole time like a shadow in the corner watching us as we lit up the house in that windy moment that brought forth our tears and our own silent prayers and eventually made us drift off to separate rooms where we became like two small clouds that lived and dissolved so far apart in the depths of the cool night sky

lying alone
listening to rain
fall on the roof

Ryan Jessup

is a Christian, a husband, a father, a poet, and a downhill skateboarder. His work has appeared in Contemporary Haibun Online, Haibun Today, Lynx, Notes from the Gean, Relief Journal, and others. His haibun have twice been included in the annual print anthology of Contemporary Haibun, and is forthcoming in the Snapshot Press eChapbook Awards print anthology of the best haibun from the first four years of the awards. He lives with his wife and kids in the foothills of North Carolina.

Please visit Ryan Jessup’s listing at Poets & Writers for more information.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ A Light in Contemporary Haibun Online (Volume 8, No. 3, October 2013)

⚡ On Peter Butler’s A Piece of Shrapnel, a review in Haibun Today (Volume 7, Volume 1, March 2013)