Haibun: Frozen Footsteps

frozen trees and bushes beside a burn
a black whippet in a blue winter coat on a frozen forest trail

Last week’s footsteps look so fresh on the frozen path where our paws leave no mark. The warm glow of the morning sun welcomes us like long lost friends and in this silence I feel like coming home. Coming home to all that is well in the world, to all the magic that nature has to offer and to the simple ways in which the sparkling frost on the trees connects us to the magic within ourselves.

frost rests
in silent caress
of the dawn

© Xenia Tran

a blue and white whippet in a pink snood and silver winter coat on a frozen forest trail

I look up at the snow covered mountain against the blue sky and my mind wanders into the green and purple heathers of September, the view down over the glen and beyond the Monadliath. Winter has landed early here and we change the paths we walk with every season. Wrapped in the arms of nature we go where she leads.

stillness
before the ski slopes
open to laughter

© Xenia Tran

mount Cairngorm covered in snow

With love from Eivor, Pearl and Xenia xxx

Photographs by Xenia Tran, unedited.

Camera: Lumix Panasonic FZ38, setting: iA.

I posted both haiku on twitter as part of my daily ‘Find the Silence’ reflections for Carpe Diem Haiku’s Winter Retreat and revisited the parts of the walk that inspired the haiku to create this haibun for dVerse Haibun Monday.

This haibun appears in:

chiaroscuro__darkne_cover_for_kindle ww

which was published in December 2017 and is now available from Amazon in Europe and North America.

In 2022, we were delighted to learn that Chiaroscuro – Darkness and Light, is going to the moon. It is one of the poetry anthologies selected by Dr Samuel Peralta to be enclosed in time capsules and launched to the Moon, as a message-in-a-bottle to the future.

The Anthology will be part of The Polaris Collection, Dr Peralta’s payload associated with an Astrobotic Griffin/NASA VIPER mission, landing in the vicinity of the Lunar South Pole in November 2024.

You can read more about this collection here and more information about the Lunar Codex here.

The poem is also included in our first full-length collection Sharing Our Horizon, published in September 2018, available in paperback and ebook formats from bookstores and online retailers.

dVerse Haibun Monday Free For All

dVerse Poets Pub Logo

Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge: Ascend

Daily Prompt: Silent

Author: whippetwisdom

The stories, poems and photographs on this blog are the original creative work of Xenia Tran. Inspired by life in the Scottish Highlands and in awe of nature she gives voice to the wisdom of her adopted and fostered whippets.

68 thoughts on “Haibun: Frozen Footsteps”

  1. Oh my! I love this haibun and the way you used two haiku to bring the two paragraphs together. I also of course love the photos of your whippets mincing along on the frozen footsteps. It looks so cold but they are all snug and warm in their jackets

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much for your kind words Toni. It was so still and pure and we were wrapped up warm so that we could enjoy being out there for most of the morning with a flask of chai and some dog treats in our rucksack.

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  5. Walking with whippets, footprints in the snow, the warm glow of morning sun – heavenly, Xenia. I especially love the colours in the second part: the blue sky and the green and purple heathers.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. i can’t say i’ve
    often played in
    snow.. these greyhounds
    are lucky today as they experience
    a beauty
    feel of
    Nature
    clean to behold
    in paws that feel
    the earth and cold
    and snow flakes
    as integral
    paRts
    no different than
    the pads that balance
    tHeir orbit uPon the EARth..:)

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  18. Cant add more to what has already been said, only to agree with all.
    However, you referred to your keep you warm drink as ‘chia’, haven’t heard that description of drinking chocolate for nigh on 50 years. On board one of the Royal Navies minesweepers, mid Mediterranean, for a week or two, and what did they have on the go 24/7 chia, and were we glad of it. A memory as warming as the chia, thanks for bring that one back to the present day. Having said all that I’m thinking that your chia drink could be something different? No worries as it was the word that invoked the memory, but would like to know if your chia is the same as what I used to drink way back then?

    Take care,
    Mick ☮

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you for sharing these memories of drinking chia Mick! I was talking about chai, an ayurvedic infusion made with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves and black pepper. It is my favourite brew during the colder months and very warming ☺

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      Reply

  21. I am actually sitting here sipping on chai right now, so this poem was the perfect accompaniment! There is a gentle calm within your words, a feeling of acceptance and trust in change…perhaps in seasons and in life. I especially love “the sparkling frost on the trees connects us to the magic within ourselves.”…and “Wrapped in the arms of nature we go where she leads.”

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much for your kind words Mish 💖 I have total trust and acceptance of all that I experience in the silence and in nature. It is so different from our younger years in London where the seasons traveled by mostly unnoticed. Where we are now it truly feels like home on so many levels. Thank you for stopping by and have a blessed rest of the day 💖

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