Lonely Graves in the Mist

Rural Graves in the Morning Mist

August 15 2004

In rural Japan, most of the farm houses have their own small private graveyard with stone monuments for the ancestors. It is still quite common to visit these graves and make offerings four times a year, spring and autumn equinox, o-Bon in mid-august and during the New Year Holidays.

But this year in our area :

.................................... Autumn equinox -
.................................... so many gravestones
.................................... without flowers

aki-higan
asoko no haka mo
hana no naki

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

During the Japanese Bon festival for the ancestor spirits many graves in our mountain village are not visited any more by the relatives. They are overgrown with weeds and sometimes now beautiful wild white lilies stand beside them, as if their white bells would make up for the humans that do not come say prayers any more.

shira-yuri ya
na mo nai haka ni
gasshoo su

............................... white lilies -
............................... at a grave with no name
............................... I fold my hands

weisse Lilien -
an einem Grab ohne Namen
falte ich die Haende

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

September 8 2004

Venturing out after the typhoon Nr. 18 brought another noisy night, wading through broken branches up to get the newspaper, turning to the ancestral graves on the way for a greeting they where backlit by the early morning sun on this fresh cool morning.

Small pink flowers, about 20 cm high, with a straight stem and a pink foxtail sticking out from each top where standing there, straight and strong, shimmering and glimmering in the early morning sun, sticking out among the fallen branches of the huge cedar trees｡

................................................. Thus is eternal encouragement.

straight pink flowers
in front of the graves -
this typhoon is over

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

July 17 2004

The lonely farm houses here in the Japanese mountains all have their own private small graveyard for the ancestor,s graves. Nobody comes to care for them any more, even at O-Bon in August, the memorial of the ancestors, they are just like that on my daily walk to the newspaper:

weeds among graves
further down
graves among weeds

................................Unkraut zwischen Graebern
................................weiter unten
................................Graeber zwischen Unkraut

You can find the original postings in my Haiku Forum:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/

Gabi Greve
(c) October 2004

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