NVN Sunday: SHISHI-ODOSHI IN THE CONSTITUTION GARDEN
by Richard L. Matta
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A bamboo pipe sun-bleached to parchment paper white trickles water like truth makes deliveries to a receiver pipe, and when it’s had enough, it doesn’t lie still but sounds an alert. Big red dragonflies alight on the pipe, as if to refute the value of the water, and all the while little blue dashers zigzag for attention. The lower rocker pipe fills and pivots and spills and smacks a rock and who should stay in place but the big red dragonflies. The device is like a gavel for everyone to hear but despite the crack it’s become background static. Not even a deer or boar would hesitate to spy and steal and disrupt the plentiful garden where a shishi-odoshi is just an artful design.
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Richard L. Matta grew up in New York and now lives in San Diego. Some of his work is found in Ancient Paths, Dewdrop, San Pedro River Review, Third Wednesday, Gyroscope, and many international haiku journals.