I decided to write these haikus on a gloomy day, last week. I’d just received the news that work was wrapping up until the Corona Virus was ‘gone’, another 800  had just died in Italy, and our Prime Minister was now calling for a ‘very serious’ lockdown. The loo-rolls are gone (from the store shelves), the hand-sanitiser’s gone..and so much more is gone… like the solid ground beneath my feet.

Mish is hosting Poetics today with  words from Mizuta Masahide, the 17th century samurai and poet, a student of Basho:  “Barn’s burnt down, now I can see the moon.”

As with all things in life, we’ll be able ‘to see the moon’ for all its beauty-after this chaos.

Needless to say, these pieces depict the struggle between faith and uncertainty, a theme that will be remembered for generations to come.

 

tears cascade like rain

while fear and doubt struggle

against each other

hoping for summer

while hiding back from the grave

is the new prayer

 

 

social distancing

our way to prevent the storm

while disarming fear

just like Icarus

we now fall by the hundreds

like flies from the sky

I can only smile

like a sailor lost at sea

dodging a virus

how do I inhale

Springtime’s heady aroma

from behind this mask?

 

by Vivian Zems

dverse poets