Tony Pupello
Essay #32 March/April 2026
The object of this essay is to look at a number of haiku in which the peripherals to an actual death itself are the focus. Death is merely a starting point. The peripherals to death comprise the experiences through which we feel, cope with and ultimately, we hope, come to grips with the loss of a loved one.
Deathbed …
my old friend’s imitation
of a firefly
In this poem vince tripi captures the fleeting brevity of life. We are here, we are gone. Not much more to say; in the great scheme of things a very, very rapid occurrence. “Where has the time gone?” a most familiar refrain, especially among older adults. Yet, as with all good haiku, there is an echo here that extends the moment. This is not simply a poem about the last gasp of a life. Why a firefly? Why not a bumblebee or an eagle or whatever? Precisely because “firefly” is not about the insect per se — it is about its glow. tripi is capturing not only the brevity of life but, I think, capturing an essential concomitant — life’s essence, its spark. Although immediately confronted with a deathbed — I would argue the focus is not on the deathbed but on that spark that has excited and delighted us, as does a firefly’s flicker.
Emily Romano and Julie Warther [Schwerin] offer us two poems each starting with a “death watch”.
death watch death watch
her knitting needles keeping she dies peacefully
silence at bay in their sleep
“Death watch” — an agonizing period of time for loved ones. Literally watching, waiting, hoping against hope for a reprieve yet knowing, all too well, the moment of death of a loved one is at hand. The silence of a death watch can be fraught with guilt, self-recrimination, all the negative feelings of emotion the monkey-mind can conjure. For most of us, the silence would be too much to bear. Clearly, for Romano’s participant(s) of this death watch this is the case. The overwhelming silence is kept “at bay” viz the calming cadence of the knitting needles. Whereas the click-click of knitting needles might at times be a source of anxiety, in this instance it is a source of distraction, if not outright comfort. By keeping the silence at bay, is not the knitter also keeping death at bay, at least for a while?
Julie Warther [Schwerin] offers a different echo at the moment close to/at death. We would expect, of course, the second two lines of Warther’s poem to read: “she dies peacefully/in her sleep”. In a masterful turn, Warther moves the focus from the soon-to-be deceased to the others — those who will be left behind. Perhaps mercifully, “she” has spared them that exact moment of death, waiting for “them” to be asleep. Further, especially if conscious to a degree, she has spared herself by sharing one last act of love — not burdening the watchers with the moment of death she can die peacefully.
The death watch is over. The loved one has died, or passed — or what? The following two poems by Francine Banwarth and Hillary Tann perfectly capture the awkwardness we all have experienced at one time or another in speaking of the dead.
to say died fumbling
or passed away with tenses
winter sky at the wake
Banwarth’s piece is very, very close to my heart. In researching this essay I could not believe it when I came across it. So simple, so elegant a framing of what would be “correct” or “expected” to say about someone no longer with us. I personally in most cases opt for “passed away” as I believe it is a gentler phrasing. Unless I am very clear the bereaved are perfectly fine with “died”. That said, I have had several conversations (hence the “close to my heart” categorization) with an esteemed haiku colleague who insists that “passed away” is a very poor euphemism for an act that is final and absolute. Why sugarcoat it? Why not deal with the abject reality? Needless to say, in the final analysis, “died” or “passed away” we are left with the cold, perhaps harsh reality, of the winter sky.
Tann’s poem captures the awkwardness of death phraseology or death-speak at an even more basic level. In Tann’s poem we are no longer dealing with conceptual states. She has removed the spiritual dimensions of death, ie: passed on from this realm to the next or another. We are dealing with the “here and now” as it were and, as is often the case when speaking of the departed, especially of the recently departed, we jump back and forth between tenses without conscious thought. “Dennis is probably the most natural ballplayer I have ever known; he hits and fields like nobody’s business; he would have loved that Mets’ game last night”. We fumble, we are embarrassed.
Certainly when it comes to funerals and their aftermath there is a great deal of irony afoot as can be found in the work below by Peter Yovu, David Giacalone and Royal Baysinger respectively.
at the funeral funeral dirge —
the suit he wore we bury the one
to all the funerals who could carry a tune
not there
to remind me who’s who
— your funeral
I find Yovu’s poignant poem to be a remembrance, a recognition of a loved one who — possibly because it was one of the few suits he had, possibly because it was a special suit reserved only for funerals — has been laid out in the suit he wore to quite a few funerals — “all” in fact. Of interest is that the poet was close enough to the deceased to have known and noted this, probably sharing attendance at many of those funerals, and not only will this be the last time the poet will be seeing his friend/loved one, this is the last time he will be seeing this familiar suit. While I don’t think there is any intention to be funny, this could be perceived as a piece of dark humor. That said, I tend to think this a comforting poem, as it is, in a “good way”, fitting for the deceased to have been laid out in his “funeral suit”.
Giacalone’s poem is clearly an homage to the deceased. The poet’s anger and frustration at their loss is expressed through this homage. Note the use of the word “dirge”. A dirge is a most somber, mournful lament. Perhaps the dirge is made all the more so because it is being sung or recited by someone less than vocally gifted. And, there’s the rub, the one who could sing it beautifully is the one being buried, the one we have lost.
Finally, Baysinger’s poem I find to be a quaint, affecting piece. The poet is at the funeral of a loved one, most probably a parent or a close family member of the parent’s generation. Not knowing exactly who members of the extended family are, or close family friends outside the poet’s ken, the poet would be dependent on the deceased to provide that information. This is a moment of stark realization on the part of the poet. The connection to an extended family, to an ancestry, to the past is irrevocably lost with the death of the parent. In addition to all the myriad things a parent would have to offer a child, these connections may be some of the deepest yet never spoken about nor acknowledged — the connection to ancestry and the past. In an alternative but related reading, this poem could be about the loss of a life partner who provided social information to a forgetful spouse/significant other — but I think this not the case.
running
all the red lights —
funeral procession
Carlos Colón’s “running” above, offers a slightly different irony. One that definitely slants towards the humorous. As anyone who has ever been in, seen, or have had to wait in traffic knows — especially in a city — funeral processions are known for running red lights. Funeral drivers are tasked with keeping the funeral procession together at all costs, even as it often means running red lights. [As an aside or two, experienced funeral drivers will often stop at an intersection effectively blocking oncoming traffic that might disrupt a procession, leap-frogging this task between drivers; and respectful drivers and pedestrians will ofttimes acknowledge the solemnity of a funeral procession and not disrupt the procession no matter the cost of their own lost time]. So, Colón takes this very normal everyday occurrence of a funeral procession and makes us think — is the deceased late for an appointment? Just where are they running to?
Funerals can certainly offer surprises as well, as seen in Elsie Surena’s and Tena Myers’ poems below:
first winter flakes … meeting strangers
at the funeral, a brother I’ve known forever
I never knew I had Grandpa’s funeral
Surena’s piece is very straightforward. Imagine the jumble of confused feelings that might arise upon learning of a sibling one never knew one had — and in the setting of a funeral no less. “first flakes” is an apt first line. I sense it echoes the moment the brother is introduced or pointed out. A bit of confused hesitation as the poet absorbs the enormity of the situation. I imagine, though, it would at some point be followed by a full-on blizzard.
In my reading Myers’ poem is much less straightforward. It can take one of two paths. Either the poet is meeting family members only known through “Grandpa’s” stories for the first time — stories told again and again until the poet has internalized them — hence although real in the imagination, strangers in real life. As the poet uses the word “meeting” I think this to be the case. An alternative reading, however, almost as plausible, might be that the poet, due to the loss of Grandpa, has experienced a perceptual shift, a shock, and is looking at family members they have known their whole lives through a different lens. In either reading I find the intrigue, the mystery, drawing me a bit deeper into the poem.
Deaths and funerals change lives, change us, of course. Witness the simple profundity in R. A. Stefanac’s classic:
dad’s wake
the weight
of my new shoes
So seemingly simple in its execution, in its ordinariness. New shoes are by definition strange or alien to us. Ofttimes, as we are unaccustomed to them, new shoes are heavy, light, tight, loose, what have you. In this poem a pair of new shoes that may feel slightly heavier to the poet, are all the more so given the death of the poet’s father. Clearly central to the poem is the metaphorical weight the poet now feels in having to “fill” his father’s shoes; yet the metaphor does not override the actual. The sublime brilliance of this joining of the metaphorical to the actual is what makes this effort far superior.
A concomitant of death is our all-too-human attempt to escape from it — at least psychologically. The following poem by John McManus speaks to this in an interesting, novel way.
funeral morning
I join my son inside
his time machine
A child’s fantasy construct. Perhaps of cardboard, blankets, whatever. This is not a castle nor a fort nor an army bunker — this is a time machine! And what better place for a grieving parent to hide in, to retreat to, than another time, most probably an earlier time when the deceased was alive and vibrant.
The following two poems by Jacek Margolak and Miriam Borne offer two different takes on how children might deal with death.
grandfather’s funeral in the casket room
my son asks me the funeral director’s children
where Neverland was play hide and seek
In Margolak’s poem it is not clear whether it is the poet’s father or grandfather who has passed, yet I think this secondary. This is a respected, loved grandfather (or great grandfather) of what I suspect is a fairly young grandson. What do we tell children when people die, when loved ones die? Do we try to explain in clinical terms what death is? Or do most of us take the more euphemistic route? Indeed a good number of folks would say that “heaven” is just a euphemism! I suspect the father has tried to cushion the loss for his son by explaining that grandpa has gone to Neverland. Kids being who they are, not meaning to make it more difficult for the parent, would beg the question: where is Neverland?
In Borne’s piece we might argue the funeral director’s kids are simply playing around mommy or daddy’s workplace — the way they would if, say, it were a conventional office. Used to that environment, they wouldn’t hesitate to have it as a “playroom” of sorts. And what opportunities for hiding places might a casket room offer?! Need I mention a casket itself?!
This poem resonates with me for a slightly different reason, however. The child of American parents of Sicilian heritage, my first memory of a funeral was at about the age of four. My parents, aunts and uncles as well, did not shy away from bringing us to a funeral. Although horrible, death was a natural extension of life. Although we did not go so far as to play hide-and-seek, nor anything so blatantly disrespectful… there was that time when a slightly older cousin sought to scare the bejeebers out of his younger cousins by hiding in an old telephone booth located in the lower level of the “much-used-by-the-family” funeral parlor and then dramatically stepping out of it at the appropriate time. He did manage to scare a few of my cousins but the sight of him doing so then, the memory of it now, still brings tears of laughter to my eyes. I would suggest that at times a number of kids would play in or around a funeral parlor!
We are offered a very different treatment in Charles D. Nethaway, Jr.’s heartbreaking:
how any times
did i tell him to be quiet —
child in coffin
The aforementioned feelings of guilt and self-recrimination a death might precipitate are on full display here. We don’t know who the unnamed child is, we don’t know how old, we don’t know the relation to the poet. The poet can barely describe this child; the child remains an enigma. Or perhaps, this is meant to be an “everychild”. What we do know, what we can viscerally feel, is the poet’s overwhelming sense of guilt. The child is now, and will forever be, quiet; the silence is more than deafening to the poet, searing him — and us — deeply to the core.
Although tsuri shies away from memorials and the like, a few weeks ago as I was writing and thinking about this essay, we lost one of the pillars of the haiku community — Bruce Ross. Sometimes in a sea of seemingly self-aggrandizing egos Bruce was a quiet, unassuming force. His devotion and contribution to English-language haiku will be missed. I do not know if Bruce intended the following to be a poem about death but, for me, its undying resonance is a testament to the poet’s skill and to what a life well-lived leaves behind.
Japanese garden …
a bamboo staff left
in the bamboo
