You'll Never Know - A Burning Haibun

It's Haibun Monday at dVerse.

"Hello dVersians! Welcome back after the holidays break. This is Li(sa) and it is my pleasure to host Haibun Monday today.  While looking for something different but still within the parameters of haibun, I came across a form called, burning haibun..."

Now it has come to the place where I lay out your choices to inspire you today.  Please choose one (or more) of these options:

1:  Write a burning haibun based on an interior journey you’ve taken.
2:  Write a burning haibun using the lyrics from a favorite song to inspire you.

If you choose #1 or #2, please show all of the incarnations, from original prose, to first erasure (or bolding words, as done above) to the second erasure verse using the chosen bolded words, to the final haiku or senryu (aka personalized haiku)

If you’re not feeling adventurous, please choose #3:

3:  Write a haibun on any topic you choose.

Burning haibun is a brand new form for me and in the world of poetry in general.  Let’s try to have fun with it and do a little soul searching at the same time. 

• Pen a burning haibun poem choosing one or more of the given options to guide you.
• Post your piece on your blog and link back to this post.
• Place the link to your actual post (not your blog url) on the Mister Linky page.
• Don’t forget to check the little box to accept use/privacy policy.
• Please visit other blogs and comment on their posts!
• Have fun (but only if you want to!) 

I have choose option #2 using the lyrics from For a Dancer, by Jackson Browne.*  The second incarnation is more of a poem than prose, however, since song lyrics are essentially poems, I left it that way.

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you'd always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found
I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening
And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There's nothing you can do about it anyway)
Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone
Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound
Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know

*   *   *

I know what happens when people die. 

It’s a song playing in my ear. 

I can’t help listening.
I can’t help crying. 

Fate chooses the steps you dance, 

in the end, alone.

Prayers drift, 

perhaps disappear, 

along with meaning. 

Uncertainty, 

turning around,

and around... 

Go on!
You arrive.
You go.
A reason?
You’ll never know.

*   *   *

fate chooses the end
prayers drift with uncertainty
go, you’ll never know 

©2025 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved 

*These lines are particularly moving to me.  The thought, the belief (one I share), that our lives may have had meaning that lives beyond us, but we will never know is beautiful, yet so, so sad.  Whenever I hear this song I can't hold back tearing eyes, as it reminds me so of my late husband (although our only dance was at our high school senior ball!).  I thought he'd "always be around."  Interestingly, it's written that "...the burning haibun’s focus is upon the interior landscape of memory—an environment often rendered fragmentary by trauma."

*And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know