re:Virals 505
Welcome to re:Virals, The Haiku Foundation’s weekly commentary feature on some of your favorites among the best contemporary haiku and senryu written in English, hosted by Keith Evetts (managing editor) and Melissa Dennison. In the seat today is Melissa. This week’s poem, chosen by Sitarama Seshu Maringanti was:
mangroves the promised manatees never come Agnes Eva Savich Presence 81, March 2025
Introducing this poem, Sitarama writes:
The Haiku by Agnes Eva Savich is a reflection of the poet’s deep concern for the enveloping ecological imbalance due to climate change. The Mangroves are both an important part of the marine habitat and an important source of food for a range of species, including fish, crustaceans and marine mammals like manatees. But the march of human activities is endangering the very existence of mangrove forests which play an important role in preserving the ecological balance. Their slow and steady disappearance is affecting various species that depend on the mangroves for their survival. Manatees are one such species. Reversal of the damage being done to the mangrove forests may not be possible. There’s no better example of this danger to the climate than the non-sighting of the manatees. The poet has articulated this concern very well in her haiku.
Opening comment:
When reading this haiku I am instantly reminded of the climate emergency and the impact our way of life is having on our planetary home. Manatees like so many other creatures are now listed as vulnerable to extinction due to boat collisions, destruction of habitat and hunting. This is a depressing tale that is all too familiar in the 21st Century.
What strikes me about these 3 lines is that they describe how the habitat is there but the manatees which everyone expects to arrive never do. That is interesting, and it makes me think of my own experience. For instance, I put food and fresh water out for the birds every day and yet over the past 20 years I have witnessed a decline in the diversity of bird species that visit as well as numbers. I have mature trees, shrubs and I garden organically and yet this seems to make little if any difference. Like so many others around the world I am witness to what could be another mass extinction event. It is easy to feel overwhelmed, insignificant and powerless in the face of such events. Could the problem be more complex than the ‘build it and they will come’ (to paraphrase the famous ’90’s film Field of Dreams) narrative suggests?. What happens if they don’t come? What are we to do?
Agnes has written a poem that considers these questions and expresses a feeling of anxiety that many of us experience as the world changes around us. However, a friend once told me that it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. Rather than sit with our head in our hands and despair we need to take action. More importantly, as the link to a BBC article from August 2024 in the footnotes below shows there still is hope – there are success stories out there. This photo of a manatee and calf amongst the seagrass in Hunter Springs, Florida shows that habitat restoration can be successful. The manatees might just arrive after all.
Please see the footnotes below for further information about manatee conservation.
Sudha Devi Nayak:
This beautiful haiku is a painful confrontation of the breakdown of the fragile ecosystem that sustains our planet. The mangroves are resilient growing where land meets sea. Guardians of our coastlines, preventing their erosion, reducing storm surges and the impact of hurricanes and extreme weather events.
They are a resource for human communities and importantly the nurseries of various marine species. They represent biodiversity, the eternal connection of humans with nature and it’s variety. The manatees also known as sea cows are enormous aquatic mammals lying submerged in the waters of the sea. They shelter in the mangroves with their calves, a safe and protected place for raising their young.
The mangroves today are endangered by frenetic development activity – building infrastructure with roads, resorts, harbours along the coastline, a cruel encroachment treating them as dumping yards for pollutants and effluents. It is a loss of habitat for the manatees who can no longer look to the mangroves for much needed nurture and rest. The mangroves are mentors to the manatees.
Nature is our benefactor and in the chain of connectedness of human, animal and plant there is an eco-balance that we are consciously trying to upset with our avarice and mistaken notions of progress. So long as we do not make peace with nature the mangrove waits in vain for the manatee.
Dan Campbell:
Essay in the Persona of an Ancient Warrior:
Mangroves
the promised manatees
never come
The world no longer speaks in the tongues of heroes. But I, old and bone-worn, still listen. This brief poem—bare as a blade—cuts deeper than most sagas sung around the fire.
I remember when the mangroves were sacred groves, tangled like the hair of river gods. We warriors would rest beneath their shade, believing the still waters hid gentler creatures—manatees, fat and floating, the cow-spirits of the sea. The seers promised we would see them, and in their seeing, find peace. A sign that the gods had forgiven our iron and rage.
But they never came.
That absence haunts the verse. It speaks of betrayal—not from enemies, but from expectation. The warrior’s life is full of promises: glory, homecoming, honor. Yet time steals them. Like the manatees, they drift away, unseen. The mangroves remain—mute, gnarled witnesses to our waiting.
The poet, though from another age, chants the song of all who’ve waited too long. Who’ve peered into the quiet and found not comfort, but silence. This haiku is no complaint—it is a battle scar.
I carry it with me now, as I do my sword—old, but sharp. The promised manatees never came. But we, the forgotten warriors, did.
And still we wait.
Lakshman Bulusu:
This haiku reflects the simple truth that the grass is green on your side, but you cannot graze on it. The essence of mangroves (having a greater percentage of salt in them) that prevent the manatees from grazing on them. Metaphorically it might mean a promise broken due to obstruction that is unavoidable. Just like salt prevents the manatees from coming for their fodder, the inherent qualities in certain people might turn them away in fulfilling their promises just like the mangroves make the manatees turn away — “you cannot choose your own path to fulfill your own promises without any fault of yours”.
The haiku portrays this as you read between the words and between the three lines.
Harrison Lightwater:
A haiku without a season, but for all seasons. I feel the poet’s longing to see and connect with the manatees. Peaceful grazing sea-creatures of humanoid features, who harm no-one, they are said to be the origin of ancient mariners’ tales of mermaids. I feel her disappointment that they don’t show up, and her sense of being cheated somehow by the promises made by the excursion operators exploiting them and the poet, that manatees ‘can’ be seen, or some other careful wording.
Beyond that, there is a deeper feeling inserted by the words “never come.” Not simply “don’t come,” but never come (editor please put this ‘never’ in bold or italic face, thanks). Manatees are seriously endangered, including by tourist trips and other propellor-driven boats. At the present rate, one day they may indeed “never come” because we have brought about their extinction.
This economical poem in plain language reads and sounds well, with the ‘man’ in mangroves and manatees subliminally stimulating reflection on their resemblance to people and on ‘man’s’ behaviour to them, whether loving or uncaring, or both. What’s more, the reader feels the heartache that it transmits so subtly.
Jo McInerney Seeds of Hope:
There is a delicate mix of tones in Agnes Eva Savich’s haiku.
The opening line ‘mangroves’ establishes a scene rich with life yet curiously monotonous. Flat, expansive and heavy with green-brown water, mangrove swamps are at once dank and alive with intimations of life. Birdcalls, frog calls, ripples in the water.
Line two literally picks up on this hope of a sighting of life. And not any life, ‘manatees’. It is a wonderful word, strange and almost celebratory. And the animal itself – huge, blunt-nosed with dark, sunken eyes – can be imagined prompting huddled watchers to try to catch a glimpse.
But there is more suggested here. There’s a pre-emptive disappointment in line two’s ‘the promised manatees’, ‘promised’ almost anticipates failure.
Regrettably, the threat currently faced by manatees as their habitat is drained and the climate changes is quietly suggested in the ‘manatees / never come’. Hopefully, line three is not an accurate prediction of the animal’s fate and the haiku functions as an effective warning of what is at stake.
Thanks to all who sent commentaries. As the contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week, Jo McInerney has chosen next week’s poem, which you’ll find below. We invite you to write a commentary to it. It may be short, or of moderate length, academic, your personal response, spontaneous, or idiosyncratic. As long as it focuses on the verse presented, and with respect for the poet, all genuine reader reaction, criticism, and pertinent discussion is of value. Out-takes are kept in the THF Archives. Best of all, the chosen commentary’s author gets to pick the next poem.
Anyone can participate. Simply use the re:Virals commentary form below to enter your commentary on the new week’s poem (“Your text”) by the following Tuesday midnight, Eastern US Time Zone, and then press Submit to send your entry. The Submit button will not be available until Name, Email, and Place of Residence fields are filled in. We look forward to seeing your commentary and finding out about your favourite poems.
Poem for commentary:
Ides of March snowmelt down the rainspout floods the alley — chad henry tsuri doro Issue #8 – March/April 2022
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Footnote:
Agnes Eva Savich was born in Poland and grew up in Chicago. She has a BA in Comparative Literature from Northwestern University. Agnes lives in Austin plays oboe in the orchestra, and works in administration at The University of Texas at Austin. Agnes has many awards and other honors including First Prize, Haiku North America conference contest (2017); Runner-up, Golden Haiku Contest (2016 & 2017); Sakura Award & Honourable Mention, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Invitational (2016), and Sakura Award (2017); Merit Award, ITO EN Oi Ocha New Haiku Contest (2016); Distinguished Poet Award, Italian Haiku Association International Matsuo Bashō Award Contest (2016); Selected for inclusion, The Haiku Foundation app (2012); Selected for “Southwestern Haijin Spotlight” in Roadrunner Haiku Journal VI:1 (2006).
She also has a website, see the link below:
https://agnesevasavich.wordpress.com
BBC News (2024) Manatee mum and calf charm wildlife judges: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8vd3jy2dpyo
For more information about the restoration of mangroves and manatee conservation:
https://www.fauna-flora.org/news/ten-species-to-watch-in-2025/
https://www.fauna-flora.org/news/multitalented-mangroves-spotlight-trees-save-us/
https://www.fauna-flora.org/opinion/root-branch-reform-protecting-restoring-worlds-mangrove-forests/
https://www.nwf.org/Our-Work/Wildlife-Conservation/Manatee
