Death Has A Sound
By Marla Lukofsky
Death is the deepest of silence.
It's a quiet unlike any other.
Do you hear that?
Be still and listen.
There it is.
A quiet unlike any other.
See "The Hospice Flute."
GENTLY INTO THE NIGHT
By Sue Mayfield Geiger
I watch carefully as the hospice team changes his hospital gown and rolls him over.
The I.V., catheter, and oxygen are removed. Deep breaths heave in and out of his body.
I stroke his forehead and thank him for being a wonderful father. I go home.
The phone rings early the next morning, and I know.
Comment: Writing death haiku was a tradition in Japan. The three greatest haiki poets, Basho, Buson and Issa's Death Poems follow.
Basho
Sick on a journey,
my dreams wander
the withered fields.
Buson
Winter warbler --
Long ago in Wang Wei's
Hedge also.
Issa
A bath when you're born.
A bath when you die.
How stupid.
