I am in awe of the magnificent ways haiku cradles such trauma and presents it to readers of all backgrounds across the world. Call me a peace-lover, but the haiku that speak of war give me hope for a future defined by friendship more than fear. People may find it difficult to choke down a book that declares horrors of war; however, a haiku is not difficult to consume. If you give it ten seconds or so, it can affect you. Haiku has the potential to change things.
telegram in hand,
the shadow of the marine
darkens our screen door
Nick Virgilio, A Life in Haiku, pg. 10
When the United States Marine Corps is mentioned, images of strength and elite skill often come to mind. I spent a week one summer at Camp Lejeune, a marine base in North Carolina. Looking back, I remember seeing chunks of toned muscle striding around. It was very intimidating to see such power; I was and am grateful to have such a group on my side. However, Virgilio paints a different image of a marine in his haiku. What I would typically consider a welcomed sight, the appearance of this marine casts a literal and figurative shadow on the house. He is unwelcome and feared, not because of who he is, but because of what he brings. The package is not tangible like the telegram. Those are just square letters pasted onto a bigger piece of paper. STOP the family says, but like a sentence on a telegram, it does not end. The Marine has a gift that will never stop giving sadness or taking happiness. A son is dead; a brother is dead. A friend, a lover—dead. The marine is feared because he will leave, but the news will not. The emptiness he will leave behind is forever. Virgilio captures this second before the news is broken in three devastating lines. The death is not blatantly declared, but it is every space between the letters. What lies ahead is waiting for a body that may never be returned. Dog tags, badges, pins and personal items that may or may not be packed away in the soldier’s bedroom. A military band will play Taps and the sound will rip hearts open again.
autumn nightfall,
recalling the Holocaust:
numbers on his arm
Nick Virgilio, A Life in Haiku, pg. 14
This is a scene that is continually replayed in both literature and film. A train full of livestock carts pulls up to a sprawling structure. There are uniformed men with guns and sticks. Snarling dogs pull short leashes taut. Iron bars are released on the side of the carts and corpses, stuck in a standing position, fall out. Behind that stumble scared faces of the barely living. Babies to elderly are pulled to the ground, belongings clutched to their chests or scattered on the muddy ground. Before entering a gate, they are sorted. There are two options: immediate death or prolonged suffering. Those who will be forced to work are stripped of their dignity and humanity. Their arms are tattooed with numbers that become their identity within the camp.
Virgilio paints a vague picture for readers. When I read this haiku, I see an older man standing at a window. The golden hour has passed but there is still some light shining through. Rain is darkening the world, though, and a survivor is lost in thought. His fingers absentmindedly trace over the numbers that were forcibly scratched into his skin. It feels like the train cars are being unloaded again. It looks like the horrors he faced when he arrived, soaked and exhausted and hungry. I have seen this kind of tattoo in person once. A survivor visited my grade school once and talked to us about what happened. I wish we had been older because I would most likely remember more. She showed us the tattoo and we didn’t understand, but she was so good at conveying emotion that we sensed a lot more than we were able to articulate. It just isn’t fair.
in the night woods . . .
a lone candle lights the face
of the frightened child
Nick Virgilio, A Life in Haiku, pg. 50
This haiku is also a very vague portrait of a night scene. When I first marked it, I did not immediately relate it to war. I thought it could have been a depiction of a truth-or-dare episode playing out. Then I remembered the children of the Holocaust and the various methods used to try and save them. One of my favorite authors was Irene Nemirovsky, a Russian Jew in France at the onset of occupation. She sent her child on a train with some of her manuscripts so she could escape the unknown-but-rumored hell awaiting her. The mother and author later died in Auschwitz, never finishing some of her novels.
That, however, is just one instance. There were children who were smuggled inside other goods, disguised as non-Jewish citizens through fake papers and a foster family, and even through underground railway systems reminiscent of Harriet Tubman’s orchestration. The child in this haiku is part of the latter, in my imagination. The parents are not there, but neither is the enemy. The fear of being discovered is very real, even if the dangers are things only to be guessed at. What looms beyond the circle of the candlelight is unknown. It could be a successful escape, but it could be something else entirely, something negative and awful. The haiku does not tell us; it only lets us wonder, as so much good art does.
Sipping his coffee
my bro waves, smiles—
then his head is gone
Edward Tick, On Sacred Mountain: Vietnam Remembered
This horrific scene is one haiku from a small chapbook comprised of work by veterans. In an attempt to relieve the pressure of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the art of haiku was introduced to a group of returned soldiers. They were encouraged to write whatever brought them solace.
In almost every war tale a scene like this can be found. One moment, a group of friends are engaged in a conversation. In the next, one is dead, shot on the spot. Comrades lock eyes before one is blown to pieces. Death in the midst of war is so instantaneous at times. Although it seems preferable to prolonged agony ending in death, it is more difficult for those left alive to bear. When a loved one dies slowly, family and friends often have time to wrap up a farewell. However, when someone’s life is taken quickly, it is much more difficult to comprehend. Before the blink, a picture of living and breathing health. After the blink, gone for the incomprehensible duration of forever. How often would that scene of death play before the soldier’s eyes? I think it is safe to presume that it occurred all too often.
The small girl clutches
a wooden Buddha, grinning
her hut is torched
Edward Tick, On Sacred Mountain: Vietnam Remembered
When I look up from my computer screen, I see a cast of Buddha in meditation. I have two worn bracelets I made by myself hung around his waist. There is a wrist mala—obsidian with radraksha seeds—around his neck, a token from a relationship on the final breath. I look at the bracelet and do not have the heart to put it away, even if looking at it makes me sad.
When I read this haiku, I was reminded of how lucky I am. The grinning Buddha is a symbol that is intended to bring the owner prosperity; in the setting, it most definitely seems out of place, if not darkly ironic. Behind her is what I assume was her home. It is on fire, destroying the physical aspect of comfort that she had most likely known for her whole life. Still, in that time of distress, Buddha is clutched. If it is in genuine love or desperation, we do not know.
Fire
ruins
sunlight
Edward Tick, On Sacred Mountain: Vietnam Remembered
Being the last haiku of the chapbook, it promptly ends the work as a whole. It is so short and simple, seemingly an observation made when the surrounding horrors faded out and all the soldier saw was a ruined day of light by the fire borne by Them or Us. Would returning to a world where there was no fire restore the beauty of sunlight? Would the soldier, upon coming home, feel as if his blindness was removed? For his sake, I hope so. This is so short and final, but so everlasting. Sunshine is something many of us take for granted. To see it ruined would direct focus to an effect that we do not often take time to think about. Would the soldier always look for the sun, just to enjoy seeing it free from fire? I imagine he did, at least for a while after the war. Maybe he still found himself doing this years later, every so often. Maybe he would play with grandkids and look up and remember.
Sitting in a hole
wondering what the hell
am I doing here?
Ty Hadman, Dong Ha Haiku
Rarely does someone talk about the evil of boredom during war. Whenever a war is reviewed, the action is covered while the in-between stuff is neglected. So little happened in the downtime that can be explained, but so much occurred. My dad’s best friend was a Marine in Vietnam. He spent a lot of time—way too much time—in foxholes. That leaves a person with a lot of time to analyze and overanalyze their situation. War is a difficult subject to third parties; imagine sitting in a hole you dug, waiting for bullets, an ambush, anything. Waiting but not knowing. You are in a foreign country full of the enemy and you aren’t really sure what you’re fighting about or for. I cannot imagine that being pleasant at all. I would argue that that free time allowed greater numbers of Post-Traumatic Stress to crop up. All they had time to do was fight and think. That is enough to drive anyone mad.
A sentiment of peace is what I am left with as I wrap up this reflection of war in haiku. I cannot help but look at every war haiku and think of a more pleasant alternative. In film, war is often glamourized. If you look at dogfights, invasions, hand-to-hand combat etc, it is often produced in a way that makes people think that it’s so badass. The haiku that I reviewed prove testament to the other side of this image. War is bloody and sad. The enemy is not always a single entity of evil. Oftentimes, the enemy is yourself. A great many soldiers felt remorse instead of adrenaline, boredom instead of joy, and sadness in place of triumphant murder. The true human element lies in the lines of war haiku. It does not lie in the flamboyant breakdown of the enemy or the successful propaganda campaigns that served as brainwashing for the masses. The humanity of war is kept alive in the lines written by friends about friends, brothers about brothers, fathers about daughters, and so on and so forth. It is the description of a monkey screaming in a jungle destroyed by war. It is the fresh grass growing over graves of young men. War is in every syllable and every space between letters.
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Works Cited
Hadman, Ty. Dong Ha Haiku. Smythe-Waithe Press, Kentfield. 1982.
Tick, Edward. On Sacred Mountain: Vietnam Remembered. HIGH/COO PRESS, Battle Ground, IN. 1984.
Virgilio, Nick. A Life in Haiku. Turtle Light Press, Arlington, VA. 2012.
Virgilio, Nick. Selected Haiku. Black Moss Press, Windsor, ONT. 1988. |
