"Momento
Mori"
Forty-six haijin from thirteen countries contributed two
hundred and sixteen haiku to the September / October 2011
"cemetery" Haiku Thread. “Cemetery” is a term from
Greek,
κοιμητήριον meaning sleeping place. In the Western
world cemeteries are the places where dead bodies and
cremated remains are buried—it is a place where final
ceremonies of death are observed and it is a place where
survivors come to mourn, grieve, commemorate, and remember
their loved ones.
One group of commendable haiku
submitted to this thread celebrate a familiar religious
observance:
all souls' day—
white rose posies
decorate the graves
# 46. Sandra Martyres, IN
repose of souls—
this night with a candle
visiting cemeteries
# 199. Malvina Mileta, CR
requiem—
from the cemetery chapel
fragrance of wax
# 79. Marija Pogorilić, CR
remembering...
Día de los Muertos
flowers and sweets
# 189. John Daleiden, US
All Souls' Day—
saddest graves
those without candles
# 205. Małgorzata Miksiewicz, PL
The only certainty for humans is that life is not forever—life
is mutable, at times capricious and at best unpredictable. Human
bodies age—they grow old and infirm, and eventually we all
succumb to the final resting place—a cemetery. …and so…it is
fitting that the final resting place be surrounded with living
evidence of the continuous life cycle—birth, change, aging, and
finally, inevitable death. One of the many ironies of life is
that once we have lived, we are buried in a place that exhibits
a lively cross section of changing life in all seasons. These
commendable haiku represent this irony:
old cemetery—
among demolished crosses
violets bloom
# 194. Maria Tirenescu, RO
Titmouse singing
into a blossomed plum—
near the cemetery
# 202. Maria Tirenescu, RO
church graveyard
a cloud of crows hover
over stone angels
# 89. Chen-ou Liu, CA
necropolis—
from ants to birds
life goes on
# 207. Małgorzata Miksiewicz, PL
in the graveyard
birds are clamorous
graves are silent
# 10. Radhey Shiam, IN
the wind howls
willow leaves cover
two new graves
# 05. Karen O'Leary, US
morning cold
on the churchyard fence
three starlings
# 191. Angie Werren, US
seaside church—
in between the graves
wild oats
# 161. Bouwe Brouwer, NL
wind picking up
the cemetery
alive with leaves
# 27. Michele L. Harvey, US
wintry day
baby’s tombstone
etched in white
# 88. Bernard Gieske, US
the tombstone
even on it ravages
of time
# 119. Vera Primorac, CR
The tenants of a cemetery are
visited by grieving survivors. This commendable group of haiku portray
various stages of survivor grief:
I sit alone
at her sunlit grave site
two white butterflies
# 102. Chen-ou Liu, CA
a river stone
still warm from my pocket
on their grave
# 75. Cara Holman, US
at sister's funeral...
even the doves refold
their wings in prayer
# 188. Kathy Nguyen, US
wild lilacs...
he sits by her grave
until the colors blur
# 213. Tzetzka Ilieva, BG
Halloween
I leave a treat
on Grampa's grave
175. S.E. Buffington, US
a lanky dog
by his master's grave:
the long wait
# 101. Keith A. Simmonds, TT
graveyard—
peaceful rendezvous
with my sleepy father
# 93. Munia Khan, BD
Arlington—
on our second date
I meet your best friend
# 177. S.E. Buffington
with her finger
she traces his engraved name—
waiting for sunset
# 216. John Daleiden, US
seeing . . . not seeing . . .
my sister's name
carved in stone
# 35. Marg Beverland, NZ
last wish—
on my gravestone
gendai haiku
# 30. Stella Pierides, DE
The commendable
haiku above portray the "cemetery" Haiku Thread with skill.
They are well constructed haiku and exemplify the following
techniques:
-
employs fragment
and phrase construction (See
Jane Reichold)
-
utilize a
written or implied kireji—through
punctuation and / or other means
-
the occasional
use of the 2nd line as a pivot
-
contain 5 7 5
syllables or less arranged on three consecutive lines
-
use
juxtaposition to express additional implied themes
-
some haiku use a
kigo
-
skillfully
represent the theme "cemetery" Haiku Thread
In closing this
commentary on "cemetery" Haiku I have selected the following
haiku as my first choice:
“Carpe Diem”
on his gravestone
winter light
# 87. Chen-ou Liu, CA
The brevity of this
4 4 3 constructed haiku is a fitting format for the sentiments
expressed in the opening line "Carpe Diem"—seize
the day. Indeed, life is fleeting and those who terry will
soon be left behind to perish—for
life is temporary, limited to a short span compared to the
environment in which it is lived, both here on earth and in the
wider reaches of the ever expanding universe, in the galaxies
beyond which we have only started to explore. The expression,
"carpe diem", seize the day, was originally expressed by Horace
in the Odes 1.11.
The Odes
(Latin Carmina) are a collection in four books
of Latin
lyric poems
by
Horace. The Horatian
ode format and style has
been emulated since by other poets. Books 1 to 3 were
published in
23 BC. According to the
journal Quadrant, they were "unparalleled by any
collection of lyric poetry produced before or after in Latin
literature. ...The Odes have been considered
traditionally by English-speaking scholars as purely
literary works. Recent evidence by a Horatian scholar
suggests they were intended as performance art, a Latin
re-interpretation of Greek lyric song.
I.11, Tu ne
quaesieris, is a short rebuke to a woman worrying about
the future; it closes with the famous line carpe diem,
quam minimum credula postero (pluck the day, trusting
tomorrow as little as possible).
Chen-ou Liu has
effectively made a literary connection to the ancient world—a
connection echoed and re-echoed in various literary forms across
the ages. This echo encourages humans to enjoy life before it is
too late: "Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May from To the
Virgins, to Make Much of Time. It resounds as an
invocation on transience and a meditation on death. It
brings to mind the film / literary character John Keating
portrayed by
Robin Williams
in the film
Dead Poets Society
(1989) who says, "Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make
your lives extraordinary." The classical phrase has risen to the
stature of an epithet—carpe
diem—and
it immediately evokes many
literary
references. For example, think
of Steve Martin who also
employs the phrase in the 1987 film Roxanne (a
modern retelling of the 1897 verse
play
Cyrano de Bergerac,
written by
French
author
Edmond Rostand).
"Carpe diem" has become a modern day epithet.
In Chen-ou Liu's
haiku, the middle line—"on his gravestone"
acts as a pivot; it effectively connects the third line--"winter
light" to the first line. The seasonal shortness of winter
days emphasizes the need to take charge of life—seize
the day—for
life is short compared to the ages and ages of history available
for us to read.
Although the latin
poets did not not directly compose haiku, I am unable to resist
the temptation to reconstruct this closing verse in their
language as a Found Poem:
carpe
diem
gaudeamus igitur
momento mori
*seize the
day / let us rejoice / remember that you are
mortal
Long ago, I
silently, and sometimes verbally, questioned why I was expected
/ required to read the ancients in their own largely dead
languages...and now I know...
A hearty thank you
to those
forty-six haijin from thirteen countries who contributed two
hundred and sixteen haiku to the September / October 2011
"cemetery" Haiku Thread.
|
