This is a time of year a virus peaks its ugly head around mid-November. It spreads a virus to those most vulnerable. You may not “catch” it at the same time; you may not catch it every year and yet, there does not seem to be guaranteed antibiotic to cure its infective powers.
September days start waning as the sun sets sooner; October days rob you of nature’s dinner’s sweetest and most potent “digestif”. November drops its veil of hoary matter and thickens day after day, week after week hiding nature’s Monet, slowly slipping into Picasso’s Blue period. Nights are longer than days and symptoms of this virus multiply
Humans are deprived of nature’s nutrient feeding brains with hope and cheer. Life, death, separation and loss blend. Waiting, as it stings open wounds and those who’ve barely healed are reminded of life’s demises.
Children as well as adults struggle through these muddy paths sucked into the windstorm of grief and loss adjusting to season’s changes in the depths of their heart and soul.
Staring out her window, faithful cat by her side, cloves comes to mind. That dark bud stares at her, hard and bitter scents bleed into her soul, remembering Grandmaman in the kitchen adding spices to the turkey dressing. A portion of sage, pepper, salt and savory, are measured in the palm of her hand. She smiles when asked the portions as she adds just a pinch of cloves. Only she had the antidote that lifts the greyness of the soul and makes the heart beat anew.
Birth and death, to me, are more similar than different. That first moment you learn you are going to have a child, you go through many emotions. You are shocked or surprised; you are in denial until you accept the fact you are, if you are someone who had not planned this and perhaps inadequately prepared at this time in your life, be it at 12, 16 or 20 years old, for example. You may be bargaining with your higher power or yourself that it could be a miscalculation or you may be a woman who has been trying to have a child for years. Maybe you do not want to believe it in case there is an error and you will be grieving a loss of that hope once again. You may even feel anger or guilt or both if it is consequences of a rape, a party gone bad, a foolish mistake…take your pick. Even if the pregnancy is planned, there are moments of sadness, of saying goodbye to the life as you knew it, the freedom and the fear of having an innocent being dependent on you for the next two decades or more. Every life transformation starts with saying goodbye to your past before hello to that new beginning.
Acceptance can be anytime throughout the gestation period or once that baby is born. And that very day you know that you are treading on unknown territory even if you are happy. That first child, the awkwardness and fear of not getting it right is ever-present. The apprehension mixed with the acceptance of this reality come together ….your new beginning.
I cannot help thinking as I am grieving my mother today, hours before that time she passed, relating death to birth or a new beginning. I am reliving each moment I was by her side that morning, afternoon, night. Even if I knew she was frail and consumed with dementia, the death…that total loss was a new sense of aching emptiness. It was shocking in the sense I had no idea I could feel this much loss at first.
As I sit here hours before her death a year ago, I cannot help but playback moments of that long day. I couldn’t go to work today…called in sick as I knew I would be of no service to youths or young adults in crisis…my soul was tired and my heart too fragile. I thought it would be the day of her passing I would feel this intense loss and need to revisit those last hours we shared together in love… symbiosis.
When I think of the time of her death being just minutes after midnight, it would make sense to be mindful of the day before. My mother would also retell me every year hours leading up to my birth which was minutes after midnight as well.
Thinking back on the births of my two children, I cannot help but be reminded of the day before they were born because those were the preparation hours, things we did not quite realizing when those babies would peak their little faces to the light and out of that warmth.
Every year I relive those moments before my children were born as I do for my grandson being present then as well.
Holding my newborn son years ago, I remember wondering (even if I was happy and had been waiting years to have this first child) how I will cope in this new beginning. Will I manage? Will I be good enough? What is ahead now is new territory I had never experienced before firsthand.
When you lose someone you love deeply, as I am feeling with my mother, I feel somewhat similar feelings…that awkwardness, self-doubt on how I will manage through the rest of my life without her. Not being able to phone her, visit her, tell her how much I love her…thank her for loving me and giving me so much all her life. No, this is new terrain at any age. It is a new beginning of a life motherless, fatherless as well…a new experience as the next generation to pass on and see myself in that new role.
As I think of birth and death, the same exercise goes on in my mind…reliving those hours before that first cry, that last gasp.
(troiku)
Birth and death time before a milestone engraved forever
birth and death
ground breaking
both preludes
time before a milestone
unfamiliar ground
flashing by
[…] “Paradox is the life of haiku, for in each verse some particular thing is seen, and at the same time, without loss of its individuality and separateness, its distinctive difference from all other things, it is seen as a no-thing, as all things, as an all-thing.” […] (Chèvrefeuille) Carpe Diem Technical Writing – Paradox
Seeking truths
here and everywhere
blinded by tales
~
pivotal escapes,
search for dreams high and low
caught in realities
Walking home late a night one would think she should be frightened. But not tonight with the light of that bright moon. The moon was almost full under a clear sky. Tomorrow it will a perfect circle but she didn’t take a chance. “What if it rains? What if the sky is filled with snow clouds?” No, she would not take a chance and tries to capture the greatness of this moon. The air is cooler than the past few weeks and it smells like snow should be coming very soon. Yes, at minus 4C the next precipitations would surely snow.
She removes her leather gloves to manipulate her smart phone to take the photo. It is nippy and she can see her breath blow white smoke. On this long dark street filled with old warehouses of the 1940’s slowly transforming into funky lofts.
November full moon was called Full Beaver Moon or Full Frost Moon since it was a time when Native Americans would set their traps before the swamps froze.(Farmer’s Almanac)
Click…and off she continues on her journey home. Seconds before arriving, she notices her shadow in front of her was a fatter version of her, to her right was a paler shorter shadow and to her left a tall stretched out version of her. No, she has no reason to be scared on her walks home…she definitely has plenty of company.
Setting up traps
before water freezes over
Beaver Full Moon
Beaver Full Moon
accompanies her home
lights up her path
Inspired by Ese’s haiku as well as her beautiful introduction of who she is, a haiku poetess. Here is a description she shared about herself:
I BELIEVE
that every journey begins with a single step, laughter really is contagious and family isn’t a word but a sentence;
that there are no better antiques than old friends;
in a difficult climb to earn the view from the top of the mountain;
that when I am good I am very good, but somehow I seem to be better when I am bad;
in „The God Of Small Things”, „The Kite Runner” , „My Poor Marat” and „The Prophet” as much as I believe in „The Little Prince”;
in coffee, green tea, caramel ice-cream and crème brûlée;
in Indian summer, winter twilight and pouring rain;
that rugby is like war – easy to start, difficult to stop and impossible to forget;
in music of different forms, colors, tongues and rhythms;
that it takes two to tango…
I am a Believer.
I think our days would be more meaningful if everyone believed in something. Either yourself, a flight to the Moon or simply tomorrow. Viva La Vida!
Such wonderful words, such a wonderful poem … that’s who Ese is … a Believer …
After closing her WP weblog she started a new weblog on Tumblr (also called “Ese’s Voice”) and that’s the place where she often posts new haiku or re-blogs haiku from other wonderful haiku poets.
Here is her haiku that has inspired my haibun:
inevitable
the dance of a falling leaf
with a snowflake
The first snowfall allows everyone to become a child again. And why not? As a child, you don’t worry about slippery roads or traffic jams. A child sees that moment…feeling it, smelling it and hearing it. Yes, one does hear the snow fall. Just listen carefully in the nighttime when all is totally still and sounds of the weight of all those snowflakes falling…not tinkles like that of rain but sounds of ten thousands marching ants …an ever so faint echo.
A child can close her eyes and imagines skating on a pond, under a clear sky; she’s a ballerina on ice. She dreams she is fast, strong yet elegant. Snow falls gently on the pond but not enough to hide the lines cut on the surface of the ice from the sharp blades of her skates, as she dances on the ice and pirouettes like une danseuse of the Nutcracker Prince.
that first snowflake like a child, she squeals with joy melts on her tongue
melts on her tongue inevitably, another snowflake on her nose
Tournesol dans un Jardin 
