Haibun

Articulating Space
Patricia Abbott
Birmingham, Michigan, USA

That winter she made a series of small quilts patterned on Paul Klee paintings there were
difficulties since the library books she used as sources varied in the precise tint of all those
little squares and it was difficult to match them up in fabric since the rectangles lost their
plumb perfection matched end to end though at other times they seemed rigidly square like
a kindergarten teacher’s idea of art and sitting on the floor amongst the pieces she grew
frantic she would ever get it right with the sizes and colors and piecing all dependent on
what appeared to be but wasn’t random choices then once finished the quilts had a
undulating look quite different from her image of the Klees and if she hung them unframed
they seemed bulky and primitive on the white, white walls and if she framed them they
floated crooked like fragile fiber sailboats on a chintz black sea.

beneath my breastbone
you stayed too long
to leave nothing behind

************

This haibun appeared in DRIFTING SANDS HAIBUN JOURNAL, July 2024