Two Versions of a Haibun After Kino Satoshi, by Renée Szostek

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Oroshi (Wind blowing down from the mountain), by Kino Satoshi (Japan) 2016                                        
http://64.136.229.66:8081/search/Satoshi  

Undulating Breezes
      
The wind blowing down the side of a mountain provides cooling relief in the suffocating heat of summer.  I press my face against a piece of glazed porcelain, feeling the smooth surface become warm, savoring the comforting cold.  Sometimes, the wind cascading down the side of a mountain becomes fierce and intense, causing storms and creating damage.  Perhaps the undulating nature of a wave attracts us.  Dynamic change offers more opportunities than static comfort, yet we long for stability, for something upon which we can always rely.  My mother set my hair in large rollers to pull out the curl when I was a young girl, while I concentrated upon reading a book.  My hair resisted all attempts to straighten it, with great determination.  I studied sine and cosine waves in junior high, realizing they continued indefinitely, toward infinity,  I appreciate curls, these days.  Their shape possesses so much potential.  The wind, an unfurling curl, undulates down the mountain.  Undulating, undulating, and always undulating.  Will it provide comforting coolness or destruction?  Regrettably, we cannot decide.  

Cascading breezes
bring coolness in summer, and
sometimes destruction.  

**

Undulating Breezes
        
The wind blowing down the side of a mountain provides cooling relief in the suffocating heat of summer.  I press my face against a piece of glazed porcelain, feeling the smooth surface become warm, savoring the comforting cold.  Sometimes, the wind cascading down the side of a mountain becomes fierce and intense, causing storms and creating damage.  Perhaps the undulating nature of a wave attracts us.  Dynamic change offers more opportunities than static comfort, yet we long for stability, for constancy, for reliability.  Lightest of greens and lightest of blues, combined, neither one dominating.  A color labeled celadon, similar to aquamarine, a hue I had seldom seen in nature, yet it comforted and relaxed me.  My mother set my hair in large rollers to pull out the curl when I was a young girl, while I concentrated upon reading a book.  My hair resisted all attempts to straighten it, with great determination.  I studied sine and cosine waves in junior high, admiring that they continued indefinitely, toward infinity.  I consumed curls of carrots in salads, delighting in their fresh crunchiness.  I appreciate curls, these days.  Their shape possesses so much potential.  The wind, an unfurling curl, undulated down the mountain.  Undulating, undulating, and always undulating.  Will it provide comforting coolness or destruction?  Regrettably, we cannot decide.  

Porcelain, smooth, cool, 
comforting, evokes mountain
breezes cascading.  

Renée Szostek 

Renée Szostek is a Tau Beta Pi, Mortar Board, and Honors College graduate of Michigan State University, and a Sigma Xi graduate of the University of Iowa.  She earned master's degrees from Northwestern University and Yale, and was Student Editor for the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.  She won first, second, and third place for haiku in the Penumbra Poetry and Haiku Contest, second and third place in the Southern Shakespeare Sonnet Contest, second prize, third prize (twice), and honourable mention for poetry in the Westminster Art Festival, and "Haiku of the Week" four times from Arts at Michigan.