WHR Summer 2021, Haiku page 4, Vanguard – page 1

First Place

pulse monitor
the exhausted curve
flattens

Ravi Kiran

Second Place

faint moonlight
just enough to catch
mom’s last breath

Maya Daneva

Third Place

intense grief
even the chutney
has lost its spice

Christina Chin

Seven Honourable Mention

(In no particular order)

what does a pine
know about death
smell of resin

Ernest Wit

☆

hospital bed
i shudder seeing my ex
on the ventilator

Mona Bedi

☆

grandma’s tombstone
the black granite stone
reflects my face

Minal Sarosh

☆

mourners gone
the graveyard fills
with fireflies

Chen-ou Liu

☆

non-believer
at the head of his grave
the sexton’s spade

John Hawkhead

☆

grave digging –
the spade hovers
over an earthworm

Srilata Krishnan

☆

autumn rain
what if death
is the end?

Tomislav Sjekloća

Zatsuei, Haiku of Merit

gunshot…
after a short silence
a huge thud in the forest

Adjei Agyei-Baah

☆

reverse wind
father lets stepson
into his will

Ramesh Anand

☆

floating
on a feather
last breath

Marilyn Ashbaugh

☆

pallbearers
a pop of raindrops
on the pine box

Marilyn Ashbaugh

☆

rising mail
in the hallway
gathering shadows

Joanna Ashwell

☆

last breath
three generations
bid farewell

Mona Bedi

☆

You died last summer⁻
The symphony of my tears
Fills our empty house.

Marie José Bernard

☆

aghast at the deadly disease
seeking solace –
the touch of forests, rivers, trees

Smeetha Bhoumik

☆

road through the valley
I went with my father,
I come back alone

Stoianka Boianova

☆

memorial service –
the bitter taste of the ashes
still in my hands

Mirela Brăilean

☆

slowly
then all at once…
mother’s death

Ed Bremson

☆

Intensive Care Unit
her hand once more closes
two eyes

Pitt Büerken

☆

he holds his dog
as the lethal dose takes effect
blind no more

Owen Bullock

☆

a nest too high
fallen baby barn swallows
on the front porch

Claire Vogel Camargo

☆

into the wind
his ashes and
tiny shoes

Erin Castaldi

Continued on pages 2

WHR Summer 2021

gardenia
the imperfect scent
of the past

Agus Maulana Sunjaya

In our pandemic days, we could have done with Dr. Alexander Garden, a Scottish-born physician, botanist and zoologist in 18th century. He lived in America for a long time and in 1760 he inoculated more than 2000 patients when a smallpox epidemic occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, making the most of his scientific expertise. But he was more well-known as a keen collector of plants and is now most famous as someone whom Gardenia was named after.

I have a weakness for gardenia predominantly because of its strong, heavy, sweet and intoxicating fragrance. Some scented flowers sometimes do smell to our satisfaction but other times their smell is faint, vague or almost non-existent, which leaves one, me at least, disappointed, frustrated and even angry as I love smelling flowers so much. Gardenia gives full fragrance every time without fail.

The flower smell does a world of good to me. First and foremost, it gives me joy, a rare commodity in these days. It transports me to a different world where things are still sound, proper, profound, genuine and worthwhile. It prompts me to creative activities such as painting pictures, writing poems novels or doing creative cooking and, you guessed it, gardening. If I am downhearted it puts me right. So, the smell of flowers is a big deal for me and not insignificantly plays a part of a doctor, clinical psychologist and a muse. I even go out into the garden to smell flowers to fill my stomach when I happen to run out of food in the house on account of my miscalculation in the pandemic shopping strategy.

Notwithstanding my predilection mentioned, I did not make this issue’s Editor’s Choice because of gardenia per se. It is the mysterious line 2 and 3 that my attention was irresistibly attracted to. I am not normally keen on haiku which leaves one having no idea what the author is talking about (of which there are so many around). This one is different in a very subtle way. It is true that one may not know what the author means by “imperfect”. Does it mean simply that the smell of the gardenia is not totally to one’s liking and therefore unsatisfactory? Or is it talking about something which happened in the past, as smell is said to bring back memories of the past instantly? We still don’t know what these memories are of. That past something around gardenia, be it love affair, parting, or some memorable occasion, is deliberately left an enigma. Gardenia is native to tropical and subtropical regions in the world. The author is Indonesian and therefore must know everything about this plant.

Or else, is the author saying that even the scent of the gardenia is not good enough to bring the past back? Whatever it may mean, the choice of word, imperfect, sets this haiku apart. Just try and use usual adjectives associated with the smell of gardenia, strong, sweet, heavy, intoxicating (the ones I used above), the haiku would immediately turn banal!

The author is a bit of a wordsmith and good at expressing things in a concrete but subtle and under-stated way. Here is scope for developing a new kind of haiku, which is not a rehash of the American-led haiku. It could herald a new branch which will be an extension but independent of traditional Japanese haiku, the root.

Susumu Takiguchi