The Cuckoo – Adult Fairy Tale/Haibun – April 30, 2015

Up in the woods behind the village there’s a place where lover’s sometimes go.  Private, mossy and cool when the summer haze sets in this place is as inviting as any four star hotel. The smell of wild thyme and pine fills the air and a cuckoo’s serenade often echoes through the trees.

One day, a young couple came upon this happy corner of the woods and decided to have a picnic.  They put down their nap sack and laid out a blanket.  Before eating their lunch though, they started kissing and well … you know, one thing leads to another.  Their love song wove its way from tree to tree; then came his mighty climax – it sounded like the roar of a lion and  her return call sounded like the cry of a hawk.

A woodsman was walking along the path that would have led him to their refuge but he stopped short when he heard their love song.  He must have been at least seventy years old.  He stopped, for a second clearly remembering another summer day so many years ago.  He thought of his wife, now a little bent and yes a bit fat. What a lovely girl she’d been. Then he caught sight of his veined-knobbed wrinkled hands. He smiled and with a chuckle thought that he too had been quite a good-looking lad.  Whistling an aimless tune, he took another path that would lead him home.  He figured he could be there in just over twenty minutes and as he thought this, a vision of his lovely girl came to mind.

in a summer haze
a cuckoo’s call in the woods
inviting love

© G.s.k. ‘15

Written for Tale Weaver: Bedtime Story featured on Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie