Everything will die
Lanterns lit for old loved ones
Cut flowers wilting
I’m reading a novel by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, the Wind-up Bird Chronicle. I’ve only just started it, but it’s like nothing I’ve read before. It’s very existential in its approach, written in the first person, the main character seemingly blunders around, trying to make sense of life through a series of surreal encounters. It has a sense of impeding tragedy about it, it feels lonely, detached. I feel sad reading it. But it’s very compelling. Little acts, little descriptions all seem to weigh heavy with significance. Today’s Haiku really has nothing to do with what I’ve read of the book so far, other than it was inspired by it in terms of the unsettled feeling within me as I read on.
If I was forced to look for and pin some meaning to it, it might be that the thought of giving someone cut flowers always has troubled me. They are a gift which is either dead or dying. They may open up, they may fill the room with colour, but ultimately they will brown and die and there is little you can do about it. Much better a pot plant! If you kill that, then you’re just flippin’ useless (or the plant detested being around you)
3 comments:
It's really funny you mention the pot plant vs the cut flowers. I've had male friends bring me potted plants and while I do appreciate that and do realise it's more practical - the gesture I truly love is that of a bouquet of flowers. It just means something different to me, as a woman. It's a flattering of my femininity that I've been presented with thus beautiful, arrangement of scent and colour. The wow factor you feel as a woman when a man who loves you or cares for you appears with a wonderful, imaginative bouquet. It can leave a girl giddy.. x
Haha, I just think about death and decay! I'm a barrel of laughs :)
'...and here's a bouquet of death and decay, my love....'
Doesn't quite have the same ring about it, does it lol. x
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