*My Death Haiku"

Category: Haibun (haiku or senryu within musings or a story)

Author's Degree of Acceptance of the haibun's subject: Some. Not moving along as briskly as I could. Dragging my feet, so to speak.

One's death haiku is serious business. It's time to create mine. No premonitions of imminent demise or anything like that. I just think it's as useful to plan for one's death in artistic ways as it is in practical and financial ways.

Senryu is the form of haiku I choose. Senryu is about human affairs. It draws its meaning from human nature rather than nature nature. It offers a wry or humorous look at ourselves.

If I can't be wry or humorous about my death, I'll be in trouble. I lost my sense of humor while giving birth - and when I realized that, I was bummed for the next several hours of labor. Oh, the birth center staff and my husband started cracking jokes, which made things worse. They were all guffawing together while I couldn't muster a lousy chuckle. So I know in advance I'll need to have my wits and wit about me for the few moments before death. I'm working to imprint this information upon my subconscious, even now. I have my heart set on leaving the way I arrived during my own birth, with a smile I was told. Obviously

there was some kind of in-joke I can no longer remember. I'm hoping it's just missing the punchline, which is what the death haiku will turn out to be.

Here's my death haiku made up when a bunch of haiku poets had a death haiku competition:

sake cup -
empty or full
does not matter

Okay,not funny ha-ha but it is wry.

Here's an idea. It's not a death haiku but it is an instruction to leave in an envelope for my daughter, marked "Open In Case I'm Going To Die Pretty Soon" :

pre-death arrangements -
a drama queen must depart
in a thunder storm

If it's not summer, the last line could be: with a gale-force wind. Maybe she could read me the weather report, and if a storm is on the way I could hold out for it, like people hold out to die until after Christmas so they won't ruin the holidays for their grandchildren the rest of their lives. Or maybe they just hold out to see what in the world people got them for Christmas when they were dying.

One problem: haiku are so short. What if I say mine and still don't die? If it's one of those movie scenes with everyone around me in bed,that could be awkward. I'd be annoyed if my grandson (a person who doesn't exist yet) started looking at his watch frequently, while his sister (equally faux at the moment) kept rolling her eyes. There needs to be entertaining bedside activities for these people. I'd better have a pre-made statement ready, so I can point to it with a bony, shaking but still authoritative finger:

Shh - no more talking
let's hum along together -
music of the spheres

But no:

no one will believe
I ran out of words
finally

If I'm very very lucky, I'll awaken briefly, see everyone around me, and like my grandmother at her life's end, I'll manage to smile and say

Oh!
Is this a party
for me?

My grandmother never heard of haiku and never knew she wrote one. But she did die as artistically as the best of 'em.

I suppose in thinking about my death haiku, I ought to have a contingency plan in case I die all alone, in an accident, say my car falls off an icy cliff. I don't want to say "shit" - I mean, after I scream of course. I read once that 'shit' is the most common thing said right before death. Once, I did slide on an icy road, and there was a cliff my car was heading toward and I did say "shit" and that was even before I read the article. However, during the height of this incident, "SHIT" was quickly followed by "NO!" and "GOD" and then I managed to turn the car around - almost flipping it, another danger - but everything turned out okay. I was pleased with my driving, and I was pleased with myself that God would have been my last word before death. Now it serves me again, this time as a reminder that I could die alone. There would be no one around to prompt me, no doctor saying, "Uh, Ms. Jaye, still want me to alert you when it's time to start composing your death haiku?" I see now that dying alone could keep one very busy.

Yes, I did say God at what could have been my death, which makes me happy religiously, but is not satisfying artistically. I don't think haiku should be one word, albeit a teriffic word, an enormous word, like God. The rules have changed for haiku, like, it doesn't have to be 5-7-5 anymore thank goodness, and it can be on one line and not three, but even with the changes, I don't think haiku can be one-word. If I could count on having a few spare moments, I could elaborate on the word God, turn it into a prayer in haiku, as in:

God, please receive me
and remind my dearest love
my life was great, thanks.

(Wow, that's good! I'd better commit it to memory.)

Lately I've been wondering, maybe death isn't meant to be orchestrated by the die-er. Maybe it should be experienced in whatever way it comes. And because the format cannot be known ahead of time, I should be prepared to improvise. If that sounds difficult, remember that it would be like all the time that preceded death, in that period after birth called Life. We should all be accustomed to improvisation by the time we're dying, and we should appreciate how it takes away the necessity for memorization or practice. So, if I can't, at the time, articulate my death haiku outloud or I can't write it, it's probably within the rules to think it inside the mind.

the last dream -

my short simple poem

is over.