The Traveller Contemplates Immobility

I am still alive
but why silvery grass that
withers at the touch of the snow
Basho



My place is not here
but my ankles have been bound
to circular paths
                             
                               My unsleeping eyes
                               watch constellations turn
                               east to west by night

                               By day the wild swans
                               call to me their lost sister
                               in captivity

I’m tied to the stake
with fardels beneath my feet
words can’t set me free


Day 15 ~ 'Wherever I travel, wherever I happen to find myself, I am not from there.' Basho

Toni is our host in The Imaginary Garden today, inviting poets to contemplate A Touch of Snow. She asked for poems written in the haibun form, but I prefer not to mix prose and poetry, thus have used only the haiku form in the construction of my stanzas. Basho's Oku no Hosomichi was the direct source of inspiration for my poem.