Kairos Filters through Chronos

NovPAD 2024 | Day One: Haibun

Introducing NovPAD

I’m in a great poetry community on Facebook. Each November, they offer a prompt a day for NovPAD (November Poem A Day) under a central theme. This year, the theme is “Where I Am: Poems of Place.”

You can find them and the daily prompts on Instagram.

I hope to participate, but I make no promises. April of this year was the first time I stuck with a poem-a-day for an entire month. (It’s not easy to write on command when inspiration is low.)

In April, I posted the poems I wrote on Substack nearly every day. I won’t be doing that this month. Even if I do manage to keep up with the writing, I’ll likely stick with my usual schedule of posting so as not to overwhelm you with more poems than you can read (especially if you subscribe to others who are also doing NovPAD).

Today’s prompt is a poetic form called the haibun, which combines prose and poem. You start with a prose piece and finish it off with a haiku.

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Kairos Filters through Chronos

Driving my son to school, I note the temperature hovering at 48 degrees. A few weeks ago, I lamented the lingering heat, days reaching 105, strong-man sun reigning from chariot on high. Did autumn drop off Chronos’ map this year? Those things we waited on cooler weather to accomplish now pushed back ‘til time turns warm again. I didn’t even declutter the garage. I pull knitted blankets from storage and shake out seasons, dust-diamonds, and memories. Mother on a winter morning, knitted blanket her cover, feet tucked beneath, reading by lamplight.

As a cold sun shines,
leaves on their trees are still green
beneath bluest sky.

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Feel free to use the prompt to write a poem of your own. And if you do, I’d love to see what you came up with in the comments!