Black and White Haibun

He channel surfs though the photographs in his mother's shoebox that he keeps on the top shelf of the closet, the black ink of her static memories projected on a yellowing white glossy cardstock screen. Aunts, sisters, cousins, classmates in one roomed elementary schools and small county high schools with malt shops down the street and barbershops where men with hats and ties worn in the middle of the day would go and discuss politics and morality. The names of the suspended strangers don't matter. He doesn't need to know them; he only needs to nurse on the comfort that they are always in the same poses, always in the same box, always accessible on that top shelf. He can be certain that black will always be black and white refuses to be anything but white.

In his world, how can he know for sure that the red he sees on the ambulance light is the same color that someone else saw on the cola sign? Colors are far too subjective. Black and white are monochromatic absolutes. For this reason he sits for hours watching the same black and white comedies on television, holding close the sketched images as the winter roars outside.

snow dancing festively
silhouettes of darkened trees
against a charcoal sky