Liberation - Haibun Poem Poem by Mark Heathcote

There have been some 1.2 million prisoners sent to Siberia and, many of them marched ill-clothed on foot to their graves. Whatever permafrost hasn't touched remains fighting for breath for life a reason to survive this extreme environment. It's a nomadic climb into these Ural Mountains to keep the heart beating to suck in the stagnated air that plateaus and fight on through its raging blizzards, looking on up at its slate-grey skies like a gravestone overhead waiting for some stonemasonry carving of another lost soul, other nomads name.

what escapes the wind
in these Siberian depths
just one woman's smile