Our host at Carpe Diem’s prompt is “A Departed Soul”. Many of the great masters of haiku wrote “death poems” about their own deaths. One of the “big five” who delivered haiku, Shiki wrote this on his deathbed:
sponge gourd has bloomed
choked by phlegm
a departed soul
© Shiki
having gazed at the moon
I depart from this life
with a blessing
© Basho
and our host writes:
morning dew
evaporates in the early sunlight
spirit climbs to the sky
@ Chevreuille
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
crossing (haibun)
I love our host’s haiku because it reminds me of my GrandPapa who passed June 17th during the day. I don’t remember if it was morning but the “morning dew” makes me think of the river where we were brought up and where my grandfather died in his home.
The dove is often represented in “death” but its significance is more personal to me. In French the translation for “dove” is Colombe which is my mother’s name.
I love daisies. I feel connected to this flower as the petals represent the multiplicity of my personality. The layer of petals beneath the top layer are facets to be discovered throughout a lifetime. I remember, when working in homecare, how sad I would feel when a client passed. Weeks and months caring for a person in their homes was humbling for them and such a loss when they died. After a few years, I wrote to my supervisor that I could no longer continue working in this department for each person who died, I felt a petal from the daisy fall. If I continue, what will be left of me?
Here is my attempt in writing a haiku with this tone of “death poems”:
© Clr ’14
on the river
a petal floats
crossing over
~
river breeze
wings of a dove
whoosh
© Tournesol’14
This was my response to this prompt when originally posted in July 2014 “Departed Soul (haibun)
Tournesol dans un Jardin 