A long time ago, when I was unemployed and sitting on a cold bench in Washington Square Park, I overheard a conversation between two men. Obviously acquaintances, they spoke loud enough for others to listen.

This “bench of the unemployed, disabled, infirm and impoverished” sat more than a dozen motley men and women. It was a cold December afternoon, not cold enough for white vapor trails to accompany breaths and speech, but we all had red noses and wore ridiculously looking woolen hats and caps.

The two men were speaking of Christmas pasts. One had been counting the number of Christmases he could remember. But he stopped and said: “My Christmas memories began with my dad’s first absence. Although we thought that he was fighting across France, he was already dead. From then on, our Christmases were memorial celebrations. Sad days for a child.”

During a quiet interlude, I thought about my own recent absences, which were caused by a different war, affecting a different family in 1967 and 1968.

I was in a foreign land, where people did not address my heart and soul and wished to be somewhere else.

Soldiers did not cry in those days, at least not publicly, but those days imprinted, impacted and impressed me with a deep feeling, wound and memory that I can still viscerally recall in an instant.

At this very moment, I can bring to bear upon myself a shroud of sadness which makes me feel like a fallen angel.

Raphael O’Suna

Haiku