Tracy Royce

An Intro to Zen, 1989
 
Today, the rock garden’s viewing platform is uncrowded. It’s nothing like the conga line encircling nearby Kinkaku-ji, with its gold leaf exterior and photogenic pond reflection. And maybe that’s the problem: some travelers visit these temples on the outskirts of Kyoto as a twofer. After basking in the glow of the Golden Temple, foreign tourists fail to appreciate Ryōan-ji’s Zen subtlety. Like the young man slouched against one of the columns, grumbling about how bored he is. If this were two decades later, he’d have a digital device to rescue him from quiet contemplation. He could view the rock garden’s fifteen boulders from different angles with a quick swipe of a screen. Without having to explore the viewing platform, where each vantage point obscures a new rock. No matter where you stand, only fourteen can be seen at any one time. Unless, as some believe, you’ve attained enlightenment. No danger of that today, as this guy sighs and says he’s ready to go, c’mon let’s go already.
 
 
that is the sound
of one man
yapping
 
** 
 
The Happy Couple Didn’t Register at Macy’s 
 
The groom’s favourite shop is everything I’d expected: dimly lit, a little dusty, and crammed with curiosities. I peruse a tray of memento mori rings and a set of lobotomy tools, then head for a steel cabinet, its top drawer ajar. Flipping through its contents, I’m tempted by a vintage anatomical chart of the human heart until one embrittled corner crumbles in my hand. 
 
Halloween wedding
werewolf and vampire
lock talons
 
**
  
Early Education
 
My accuser is either lying or mistaken: I did not break her crayon. Regardless, her frog-faced friend seizes my box of Crayolas. She selects one, holding it aloft before snapping it in two. Tossing its broken body aside, she decapitates another. Where is the teacher? No help arrives. Soon I am left with a hollow box and a mass of mangled wax. 
 
After school, tears streaming, I tell Mommy everything. “I’m sure she didn’t do it on purpose,” my mother says, never suspecting she has just laid the foundation for a lifetime of omissions. For the next forty-four years, I’ll conceal every wound. 
 
**
 
Upward
 
Between final exams, I sit on this secluded bench, inscribed Trees of 1931. The stone surface is smooth and cool beneath me. Above are two towering Himalayan cedars, planted as saplings by that long-ago graduating class, a gift to symbolize the new university’s growth. There is life in these limbs, the birds trilling spring. I cradle my bag of walnuts, knowing I won’t have long to wait.
 
And here comes my little learner, approaching along the walkway, twitching with ambition. He advances in bursts, his progress punctuated by periods of wary stillness as he studies me beneath tall trees. Coming close, he hesitates, then makes the leap. Now the tiny climber clings to my denim as I slowly elevate my calf. This squirrel is on an upward trajectory, riding high on the leg-o-vator, eyes trained on the walnuts. Paws extended, he reaches for the prize in my lap, reaches like this year’s graduating class soon will as we rise for our own rewards. We, who are eager to move up in the world.
 
 **
   
Meeting With the Counselor at the Cancer Support Centre
 
She looks up from my intake form and says, Have you asked your oncologist whether he can save your ovaries? 
 
after the excision
how deep
the wound
 
**
 
Hard Stick 
 
You flinched, the nurse says, his mouth puckering as he withdraws the needle. Your vein moved. At this point, I’ve heard it all: I need to drink even more water before getting my blood drawn, I have bad veins, and of course, the classic: You’re a hard stick. 
 
The day of the surgery they will take everything: my uterus, cervix, ovaries, a baker’s dozen of lymph nodes. And of course, the cancer. But they still can’t get the damn needle in. Only after the third clinician arrives with a syringe and a modicum of skill, only then will I finally get some relief. 
 
the phlebotomist calls me honey
I have no trouble 
making a fist
 
**
 
This was previously published in a different form in contemporary haibun online.
 
**
 
Tracy Royce’s writing appears in contemporary haibun online, The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, Scrawl Place, and elsewhere. She lives in Southern California, where she hikes, plays board games, and obsesses over Richard Widmark movies. Her current favorite is Night and the City. You can find her on Bluesky.