re:Virals 511

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. In the host chair today is Shawn Blair. This week’s poem, chosen by Sudha Devi Nayak was:

   
nursing home
her gaze follows 
the flight of birds
      
—Refika Dedić
 Haiku Foundation Haiku Dialogue May 14, 2025

Introducing this poem, Sudha writes:

The whole haiku carries an immanent air of peace and serenity. She has come to the nursing home perhaps sensing her lease of life is drawing to a close and she needs caregivers. Her eyes watch the flight of birds and she is aware that one day she too will be on her way to the beyond. She could be looking back at her life with some regrets at what has been left undone and with some pride at what she has accomplished, and judging by her quiet gaze she would have had a fulfilling life. Her little joys and sorrows, the epiphanies and struggles, the Divinity of her life would have given her friends, family and all the connections she ever made. And now, the strength for the journey forward.

The birds would have symbolized for her the utter happiness, grace and freedom of flight away from the earth-bound life, to realms full of peace and light. The end looks luminous and the birds, the pilgrims of the sky, beckon her to a new awakening.

Opening comment (Shawn):

An elderly woman sits in a common area of a nursing home, where there is a picture window with a bird feeder outside. Her body is still. She may move her head some, but the movement is mostly in her eyes. There is tension between that stillness, and that movement, which follows the movements of the birds. Many nursing home residents barely have a window at all, and the curtains are often shut. Perhaps the resident is confined to bed, and her son has come to visit. She barely responds to his conversation, but her eyes are active. She may seem somewhat abstracted, as if she were more attuned to something within—hopes, memories, fleeting sensations. Her gaze doesn’t merely follow the birds, it follows the flight of birds—perhaps she is a mathematician. Or she is an artist—the birds’ movements given line and gesture on her mental canvas. She could be a compassionate nurse, birds the residents. She could be a therapy cat in a sunny window.

More in the footnote…

Penny Lowery:

This poem is intriguing as it both conjures a strong image—who has not followed the flight of birds with their eyes, from an environment they feel trapped in?—and leaves a space for the imagination. The ambiguity comes from that ‘her’—we don’t know whose gaze is implied. A resident? A visitor? One of the staff even…

This does what good haiku / senryu are supposed to do: between the fragment and the phrase they open up a space where the reader can step in, where the imagination has room to engage.

And—another good test—this haiku will stay with me all day.

Joshua Gage:

This is a standard “location / moment” senryu. “Nursing home” implies somebody or someone that needs constant care, be they a resident in assisted living or something more. There is a sense that this person is trapped in this room or home, and longs for freedom, especially in the image of the last two lines. The “her” in this piece (it’s possible that this is a resident, but it could be an LPN or similar during a long shift, etc.) longs to join the birds she sees flying.

What’s interesting is that this could have easily been a haiku had the poet shifted the last line. Something like “migrating birds” or “returning birds” would create a seasonality and moment grounded in a specific time period. Rather than that, Dedić has chosen to remove the kigo, making this moment possible on any day; in other words, rather than make this one day of drudgery or longing for escape, Dedić’s language has made this every day. The drudgery and the sense of being trapped and isolated, longing for a different view, different perspective, different face, anything new or fresh in one’s life, is palpable.

We, as readers, are meant to feel for this “her,” to find the core of her humanity and to empathize with it. One could argue there are politics involved here, a rage for senior rights and dignity of life care, and the poem does have that message, but it’s soft and subtle, conveyed in imagery rather than ideas, and thus stronger and more grounded for readers.

Alan Harvey:

With respect for nursing homes and their workers, a nursing home can be a metaphor for a prison. Many of the residents are trapped there or trapped in their failing bodies which require them to be there. And you don’t have to be Icarus to take solace from the birds when trapped and imprisoned. Birds are freedom in literature. Even the caged bird sings of freedom.

Line 1 introduces the setting, a nursing home, and all that symbolizes. Line 2 introduces the character, a woman. We don’t know if this is a resident or possibly a worker stuck in a low-wage job and dreaming of bettering themselves. Finally, line 3 the flight of birds. Most readers will probably imagine an elderly resident thinking back on their younger self and the mobility and freedom of youth. But it could also be the attendant who has to clean the soiled adult diapers.

Refika Dedić treats this scenario with respectful dignity, yearning, nostalgia and longing in nine simple but effective words.

Linda Powers O’Dell:

This poignant haiku contrasts the free flight of birds and the confinement of a nursing home. We do not know who is gazing at the birds. It could be a patient, a visitor, a nurse or a doctor. This is left to the reader’s imagination. Seeing a flight of birds, anyone present in a nursing home might feel a longing for freedom.

This short haiku is remarkable for its eloquence. The first line sets the scene; the second introduces a human perspective. The third expands the scene from many closed rooms to the open sky. The ending, a vision of birds flying away, is evocative of so much being lost—memory, health, even life itself.

Leena Anandhi:

If I had to add another line to this verse it would be: Sigh!

It speaks of wistfulness taking flight with the flight of birds. Stuck in the confines of a nursing home with only a window as a window to the world, the birds offer instant distraction / entertainment and give the stuffy mind a breather. All this is felt when you read this cryptic verse where the eyes follow seems to be the pivot on which the verse itself sits. The contrast of restraint and freedom is juxtaposed with the eyes following the flight of birds as though you get to fly with your eyes! Nice!

Patricia McGuire:

Although guilty of using these pronouns I often find the use of them problematic in haiku. In many cases they add an unnecessary barrier to my empathy with the poem. Why should I care about this anonymous he / she?

In the case of this poem I am sorry to say I find that the use of “her” is bland. It’s not a bad piece of poetry, please don’t get that impression, but how much stronger could it have been if we knew a little more about the owner of the gaze? I know some of you will say, that would be telling not showing, or that it would limit our imagination’s ability to range widely with the poem. I think these points are possible to overcome.

How much more pleasurable would it have been to have been given a reason to care about the owner of the gaze? Instead I am left wondering who she is and why she’s there. Whilst we have the wistfulness of the bird flight, the nod to the idea that she doesn’t really want to be there, I have no understanding of why she finds herself in that position. There are too many possibilities and maybe that speaks to my lack of imagination but I find that unsatisfactory.

If we had a little picture of who she is, how much more interesting the wording could have been.

Knowing about the person might have opened up the potential to have a poetic rhythm in the work? A well written longer second line would make such a difference to this piece.

Apologies if this sounds negative, but I am left a little frustrated by the bare bones of a poem that could have been so much stronger.

Amoolya Kamalnath:

Having been hospitalized for a major surgery, I immediately identified with this verse. There was a small window opposite to my hospital cot which was my only connection to the outside world. Whenever I sat, I would follow the flight of the birds through that window. That was kind of my gateway to freedom, the freedom I longed for, the freedom which was not forthcoming just then.

I also think the gaze following the flight of birds could symbolize the patient thinking about leaving this earth and going to the other world, if the speaker’s illness has been a serious one or a terminal one. Maybe the trajectory of the birds makes the speaker think of the onward journey all living beings will one day have to end up taking.

Sitarama Seshu Maringanti:

Refica Dedić’s haiku brings to my memory the pitiable plight of thousands of patients afflicted by COVID-19. Many of them perished because there was initially no cure available. Hospitals and nursing homes overflowed with a daily stream of COVID patients. Only a few lucky few ones could get into nursing homes as in-patients for obtaining medical treatment. As days passed and the stocks of oxygen depleted, hopes of patients for reliable treatment and survival dimmed. The haiku tells us about the agonizing story of a patient left gasping for breath in her oxygen tent. In her last moments, she looks out of the window of her nursing home in desperation.

Her gaze follows the flight of the birds in the sky. As the birds fly freely into the distance, the patient’s hopes diminish. Slowly, the bird of life flies out of her.

Elzbieta Perzycka-Borowska:

Cool tiles lie beneath my feet. I hear the quiet shuffle of slippers, the soft hiss of an oxygen pump somewhere behind half‑closed doors. Trays of food glide past like small tugboats on a canal. The walls promise safety, yet they lean inward, reminding me that every comfort here is paid for with lost horizons.

The understated verb “follows” signals both movement and separation. The body remains in place, while the gaze sets off after the flight of birds. A sharp contrast unfolds between the closed institution and the open sky. This dichotomy can be read on several levels. First, bird migration points to the changing seasons, whereas life in a nursing home often repeats a fixed ritual. Second, the birds sweep across the sky while the observer probably sits, perhaps in a wheelchair or by a window. Third, their flight becomes a symbol of the desire to cross the limits of the building and of one’s own body.

The sound layer is spare yet present. We may hear the flutter of wings or distant cawing. These sounds synchronize with the observer’s inner pulse, giving a momentary sense of unity with the outer world. Culturally, birds evoke the soul’s journey, renewal, and the fulfilment of longing. In Polish tradition they often symbolize a yearning for freedom and for home at once. When birds fly in formation they can suggest communal solidarity. When one flies alone, it suggests a solitary act of courage. The haiku reminds us that even in confinement a moment of flight can occur, as long as the eyes and the imagination venture beyond the walls.

Joshua St. Claire—the pure kinesis of flight:

Dedić’s haiku is remarkable for its use of kinesthetic imagery. She begins with an image of intense stasis: the nursing home. The elderly residents of the nursing home are often doubly stuck: they reside there because mobility issues prevent them from taking care of themselves, and they are also unable to move from the nursing home. Line two narrows the focus, not just to a single resident, but to a resident’s eyes. Her body cannot move as it once did, but her eyes can. Only her eyes retain her old freedom of movement. Line three pulls the focus back out to what those eyes are seeing: “flight of birds.” This is not the kigo of migrating birds—nor did Dedić pick a specific bird with a seasonal association. Instead, she picks the noun “flight.” The type of bird doesn’t matter. Instead, it is the pure kinesis of flight. Not a specific bird, but any bird and all birds. The stasis of the nursing home is an effective foil that highlights the freedom of the birds. This is the heart of Dedić’s haiku: the desire for freedom and independence, specific in the images of this haiku, also extends to the universal human desire for freedom.

Author Refika Dedić:

This haiku was born out of a combination of circumstances. I went to visit my aunt in the nursing home and was left speechless. Looking at my aunt who had had a severe stroke, I felt powerless to help her. I watched her as I approached her. She was looking out the window. A woman who had always been active, loved to talk a lot… and now in a wheelchair she can’t even say a few words.

I can imagine what she was thinking as she looked out the window…

Thanks to all who sent commentaries. As the contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week, Joshua St. Claire 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:

     
today
this
gourd
has
grown
an
inch:
the
heat
— Marlene Mountain
  the old tin roof (self-published, 1976)

re:Virals is co-hosted by Shawn Blair, Melissa Dennison, Susan Yavaniski, and Keith Evetts (managing editor).

The Haiku Foundation reminds you that participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior from all parties. Please see our Code of Conduct policy.

Footnote:

Refika Dedić, a retired professor, lives in Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina. A writer of poetry, stories, essays and reviews, Dedić has published six collections of poetry (two of which are collections of haiku) and wants peace and love to reign everywhere in the world.

——

Untethered pronouns can wield some power in the humble haiku. They can be at once intimate (“she” seems to be a known someone) and distant (but who?). Perhaps naively in a world so diverse, I make assumptions about our common ground all the time, assumptions which may prove sound or unsound. One assumption of mine is that Dedić’s haiku is primarily and earnestly about an elderly female resident of a nursing home, maybe a family member of the poet. The specificity as regards her eyes—no other bodily movement is mentioned—suggests she may have had a stroke. Another assumption of mine is that most readers will probably draw the same conclusions, more or less. This reading is the heart of the haiku for me. But working against this reading are other readings that are not only possible, but may have been intended or consciously allowed by the poet. She could be something other than what we thought she was. In any decent poem, and a haiku is a poem, ambiguity has a function—even if explanations often can’t express what that function is. In this case, the function seems clear—she could be something other. The ambiguities with respect to the basic narrative don’t compete with that narrative, but support and enrich it. Each shift in perspective is a bird on the wing, and just as the protagonist follows the various birds with her eyes, the reader could follow each shift in perspective with an unbound heart.

Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things—mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity—and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves. (Bashō)