Editors Choice
cherry blossoms…
if only they could heal
the moon after eclipse
Steliana Cristina Voicu
The Japanese have loved cherry blossoms since
ancient times. No less fervently they have adored the moon. If you add the
third thing they have had strong affection for, snow, you have setsu-getsu-ka,
an expression often used to represent Japanese aesthetics. Naturally, these
have become fond themes of haiku, along with so many other branches of arts and
literature, among generations of haijin. Lo and behold, Steliana has managed to
use two out of three of them in a single haiku to good effect.
According to strict Japanese haiku conventions,
cherry blossoms are a spring kigo and the moon an autumn one, meaning they
cannot be used in the same haiku. One is taught to use only one kigo per haiku
anyway. So, is this a bad haiku? Not in the least.
Here, ‘cherry blossoms’ are the main kigo and the
moon is either a secondary kigo (as the moon is there in all four seasons and
the New Year, though seasons need to be clarified like ‘the spring moon’ if it
is not autumn) or just a thing not meant to be kigo. Whatever they may be, it
does not matter at all if one disregards Japanese haiku tradition.
What is
important is the content and how it is expressed. In this haiku, the author has
hit the jackpot. The way she talks about the cherry blossoms speaks volume
about her affection for them and their ability to make her happy by its beauty
and exuberance. Then she turns to an unexpected subject, the moon. Our
attention also shifts to it as if it is the most important thing in the world.
The cherry blossoms give the feeling of fullness,
roundness, richness and well-being. The sun has a similar effect, only
something much stronger. The moon, by contrast, represents coolness, calmness,
vicissitudes (wax and wane), silver as opposed to sun’s gold, shadow, and even
sorrow and unhappiness. The moon does not have light of its own like the sun
does but just reflection of the latter.
For the ancients the eclipse of the moon,
especially the total one, must have looked extraordinarily foreboding and
fearsome. So extraordinary that it begot all sorts of myths and superstitions.
In everyday life, when the moon wanes people are just as conscious of what is
lacking as of its visible reflected light because they did not know the science
of this optical phenomenon (Nothing was missing as the lacking bit is just a
shaded part of the moon). The waning moon gave them the feeling of things
becoming weaker, smaller, less important or significant. This is one of the
reasons why the full moon has been so much admired, praised and worshipped.
Exactly the reverse was the case at the time of total eclipse.
Steliana’s love for the cherry blossoms are now transferred to her sympathy and empathy for the moon which she also loves. Eclipse has given her a sense of loss and a feeling of sorrow. Her feeling towards it is much like the compassion of mothers with their babies or of a nurse towards her patient. Taking the etymology, compassion means to ‘suffer together’. The eclipse is taken by her as the moon’s disease or injury which needs to be tended to for a recovery or heal. But she knows she herself cannot do anything to heal it. So, she reverts back to the cherry blossoms, wishing their fullness, wholesomeness, youthfulness and bursting life would do it for her. What an extraordinary but admirable sentiment this is!
Neo-classical
Haiku, Second Place
cherry
blossoms…
if only they could heal
the moon after eclipse
Steliana Cristina Voicu
winter
solitude
only the warmth of his
knitted sweater
Cristina Valeria Apetrei
snowmelt
at the end of quarantine
clusters of crocuses
cherry
blossoms
the silence between us
becomes a poem
heat
wave
a wasp tastes first
the beer foam
Florin C. Ciobica
adding
a pipe –
the snowman looks
like my grandfather
Seby Ciobica
waiting
room
I rest my eyes
on an orchid sprout
Mona Iordan
song
of the water –
a deer bathing
in moonlight
Steliana Cristina Voicu
Shintai Haiku,
Honourable Mention
spring
fever
dreaming about
being pregnant
Cristina Valeria Apetrei
Vanguard Haiku, Honourable
Mention
one
lung left
the double joy
of each breath
Mirela Brăilean
Vanguard Haiku, Zatsuei
all
those buried
with every beat of my heart
they will live on
Mirela Brăilean
back
to school
we compare again
our heights
Seby Ciobica
Alzheimer
–
the intact memory
of his iPad
chemo
–
this time she wears
flowers in hair
letter
from afar
my old hopes
resurrected
Mona Iordan
lockdown –
I make better friends
with the cactus
Capotă Daniela Lăcrămioara
vortex leaves
at the hospital gate…
who else is gone?
a mobile phone
is sounding long…
from which coffin?
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