re:Virals 549

“More difficult than making your own verses interesting is understanding those of others…” ―Shinkei (1406 –1475). Citing this, Onitsura (1661 – 1738) wrote: “…this should be a way in which a person is completely given over to training.”

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 Susan Yavaniski. This week’s poem, chosen by Uma Padmanabhan was:

   
condo living 
grandpa learns to turn 
bonsai soil
— Archie G. Carlos
  Haiku Foundation, Haiku Dialogue, December 31, 2025. 

Introducing this poem, Uma writes:

I chose this haiku for its quiet yet powerful portrayal of adaptation.  It captures the tension between expansive pasts and confined modern living.  The phrase “condo living” immediately sets a tone of spatial limitation.  The bonsai becomes a striking symbol of life shaped within constraint.  There’s also a gentle poignancy — an older generation adjusting to a new world and his willingness to “learn” reflects humility and resilience in old age.

Host comment (Susan):

“Condo living” is an arresting fragment for a verse so much about transition. For some, it conjures a life of restriction — “the crimped, cabined, and confined” in Shakespeare’s words. For others, it represents the epitome of luxury and freedom, a housing solution that liberates the owner from the day-to-day concerns of homeownership, and affords, for a price, the leisure to pursue bigger ambitions, or at least pastimes closer to one’s heart.

Likewise, the term “grandpa” might summon the image of a man in decline, bent with infirmity, dreaming in his easy chair, his life of action past. Yet modern-day “grandpas” run iron-mans and multinational corporations, start new families and non-profits, and campaign for political office, sometimes even winning the highest office in the land!

“Condo living / grandpa learns to turn” thus puts the reader into something of a state of anticipation, almost begging a drumroll. Does this scenario portend restriction and decline? Or does it herald the liberation and promise of the fabled “second act” of a life?

Bashō had his “second act.” After decades making ends meet at various odd jobs, and practicing poetry as his free time allowed, he had acquired a nest-egg of devoted students. They built him a hut (the first of three) — a Tokugawa-era condo one might call it — that provided Basho the ultimate “lock and leave” lifestyle, simple and affordable enough to free him to live as he pleased.

Like many a retiree with an abundance of new-found time and freedom, he was initially at something of a loss as to what to do with himself. He determined to devote himself to Buddhist study and practice, to “turn his mind to the dharma” — that demanding ambition of understanding mind and achieving enlightenment “for the benefit of all sentient beings,” as it is said in Buddhism.

Though he shaved his head, and put on robes, and aspired to enter the monastery, there was no uprooting his old habits of mind. Basho’s thoughts perpetually turned away from his dharmic ambitions back to that smallest of arts, haiku — to “this sinful attachment” as he put. Still, with his “condo-based” leisure, he was able to devote himself ever more fully to his little poems, growing his poetic reputation and achieving his famous legacy. He was nonetheless perennially frustrated by his inability to give up poetry and devote himself fully to spiritual matters. Some time after moving to his Basho Hut, he wrote a haiku that seems to capture the essence of his internal struggle:

The sound of hail—
I am the same as before
Like that aging oak.
(translation by Makoto Ueda, see footnote)

Basho’s haiku reminds me  of this week’s verse in many ways.  On the one hand, “bonsai soil” is a humorously deadpan anti-climax after the lead-up and suspense of line two: “grandpa” is clearly not turning his mind to any big ambition, but rather to the smallest of endeavors (bonsai only a wee-bit bigger than haiku). On the other hand,  there is wisdom as well as a hint of sadness in this “right-sized” passion,  which affords the satisfactions and challenges of an art, but stays within the inevitable constraints of modern life, and of age, and most of all, within the limits imposed by a mind deeply rooted in its habits.  Both verses remind us that after a life cultivating certain skills and passions, mind — like a bonsai, like an aging oak — achieves a shape, and it is no easy thing to change it.

Pamela Garry:

These 13 syllables are replete with gentle contradictions.

“Condo living” can be a time of restriction and expansion.

“Grandpa” is a term of great endearment and reverence, and also of old age and depletion.

The bonsai is restricted in size and opportunity to grow, removed from a natural habitat. Nurtured by human hand and heart, the bonsai is expansive with beauty and creativity.

“Learns to turn” or simply “learns” is full of potential.  Needing to learn to turn could be a consequence of brain injury, with indefinite potential for healing.

Learning to turn bonsai soil is a communal activity of learning in the condo association. A beautiful activity for all the senses, known and unknown.

Urszula Marciniak:

Grandpa traveled the world. He loved open spaces and vast forests.

Now he’s confined to his apartment. Not in a small, windowless basement room, but in a luxurious apartment, but nonetheless confined.

His vast natural world has shrunk to the size of a bonsai.

A beautiful little tree, fitting for a luxurious apartment, but still a mere semblance of Grandpa’s forests and woods.  Grandpa, however, has an open mind and adapts to new conditions.  He finds his place in them.  However, at the end of the day, in his new surroundings, as he settles into his luxurious armchair to turn on the big-screen TV,  somewhere deep inside he longs for freedom and space,  even if his living conditions were more difficult back then. He turns on a nature documentary and falls asleep, dreaming of times gone by. Let’s not wake him.

Dan Campbell:

GRANDPA’S CONVERSATION WITH A BONSAI

You’re a quiet teacher, you know that, don’t you? I didn’t come here expecting lessons, just a smaller place, a slower pace, but then there you were, sitting in that shallow dish like you had all the time in the world, and now look at me, turning your soil like it matters.

You don’t say much, but I’ve been listening anyway. You’ve shown me that small doesn’t mean finished, that a life can be shaped and still be alive in its own direction. I used to think tending meant fixing, but you’ve taught me it’s more like keeping company.

And this patience of yours, it’s gotten into my hands. I don’t rush the turning anymore. I let the soil tell me where it’s tight, where it needs to breathe. Funny thing is, I think you’ve been doing the same for me.

We’re not so different, are we? Both of us learning how to live inside limits without letting them close us off. So I’ll keep at it, if you will—slow circles, gentle touch—and between the two of us, we’ll make a chapel out of this small,  sacred space.

Sudha Devi Nayak:

The haiku is a reminder that we are living in a world bordered by limitations. The first line spare and lean is full of fact, an existence laced with curtailment, and suddenly the image of the bonsai looms large on our consciousness in a contrast of feeling. The freedom we had known, the leisurely pace of time, are a thing of the past as we now lead greatly inhibited lives. And yet we must learn to adjust, to adapt, to be resilient and love what we can make of our lives.

The old gentleman rich with age and experience was perhaps compelled to move away from the expansive lifestyle he was accustomed to in large, open living space, to the claustrophobic confines of the condo.

Life has shrunk visibly. No longer can he hear the bird calling to the dawn, see the massive tree growing with abandon, or the vastness of the blue canopy above. No sun-spangled afternoons of spacious courtyards, no moonlight falling on the leaves. The scene is cruelly minimised to glimpses of blue from windows, the bonsai in the plant container, and the chance cooing of a bird he hears somewhere.

The transition can be painful but then there is still the rest of life to be lived, beauty to be sought, hope that springs eternal as he tends to the bonsai that gives him a semblance of harmony and peace. The microcosm in the macrocosm.

He brings to his effort devotion, humility and an eagerness to begin anew. Bonsai — a labour of love in a cramped condominium. He has learnt to fine-tune his life, tailor his needs to the present, seek courage in effort, loveliness in small moments, and live life to the fullest.

Jonathan Epstein:

I see an elderly man, downsized from home-with-backyard to condo-with-patio. He’s checking the soil of a juniper bonsai for dryness.

Experienced gardener or not, grandpa’s bonsai care, by dint of meeting the tree’s needs — soil, water, sunlight, fertilizer, pruning, shaping and occasional repotting — will repay him manyfold for his care.

I see “grandpa” as an affable, silver-haired retiree (perhaps alone) fond of life’s pre-digital ways, yet open to acquiring a new skill with a steep learning curve. An old dog learning a new trick. Haiku readers will wish him well, knowing that one day his bonsai experiment could reveal to him “a world in a grain of sand.”

A senryu that shines light not only on the human capacity to adapt at an advanced age but the symbiotic relationship of grandpa and the tree. Both parties benefit, one from care, the other from caring. Both mirror each other’s constrained circumstances.

Reading this lightens my heart. I take my cue from this Everyman, who steps up his game in the winter of life to tend the needs of his micro-garden. A man (and a tree) for all seasons.

Cezar Ciobica Sr.:

For me this is a poem about uprooting. The grandfather, probably due to health problems that arise with advancing age, now lives with one of his sons or daughters precisely so that they can take care of or supervise him.

The grandfather is in a situation of starting from scratch, of adapting to a new space, of learning new things. Certainly before this condo life the grandfather lived on a farm and benefited fully from the work and fruits of his field. Now everything is on a smaller scale, and the grandson, as an observer, notices how the grandfather learns to turn bonsai soil. A superb, but also sad image that reflects that the old man lacks the true joy of working the land, now longing for those moments of youth as for a lost paradise…

Radhamani Sarma — so much is compressed 

The haiku beginning with “condo living” moves us to curiosity.  Our great-grandfather’s days of tiled roofs, small houses with baked mud walls are over.  These are days of better living conditions, sophisticated multistoried flats with lifts and escalators, gyms and so on. 

“Condo” though an individual residence in a shared space, is a joint venture, with its ownership rules, own governing principles and laws.

“Grandpa” connecting with the first line, “condo living,” leads us to  understand that this condo is meant for senior citizens. Though perhaps accustomed to condo living, “grandpa” craves a change inside the limited confines of his unit, and rears plants for the pleasure of seeing them grow,  and to enhance his living space.

“Grandpa learns to turn / bonsai soil” — In the word “turn” so much is compressed, for the cultivation and care of bonsai ( like haiku) is a vast arena with various approaches, and requires a deep-rooted study. “Bonsai soil”  itself has special requirements if the bonsai are to thrive in their own minimal space. 

So much attention and care is required for aesthetic pleasure!   Archie G. Carlos has rooted much into this bonsai-style verse.

Author Archie Carlos:

“Condo living” is a reflection on aging and adapting.

It speaks to right-sizing in retirement. About moving to a more compact living space It means adjusting and taking up a more appropriate pastime. Or passion. From once turning/ mixing garden soil in one’s backyard to turning/ mixing bonsai soil on his condo’s kitchen island.

Grandpa learns to adapt to new circumstances, using new materials and tools, and techniques and skills. Until one reaches another milestone and perhaps needs to repot.

This poem is about figuring out ways of living one’s new here and now. And, in this instance, continuing to connect with the earth and its fruits in a different way.

Condo living — downsizing — could be about one’s once familiar world ending. It could be about Waiting for Godot day in and day out, and rotting in place. Or it could be about taking the road less traveled and becoming Godot.

Thanks to all who sent commentaries. As the contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week, Radhamani Sarma has chosen next week’s poem, which you’ll find below. We invite you to write a commentary to it. It may be short, to a maximum of 500 words (succinctness will be valued);  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. Please note that commentaries must be your own personal work.

Poem for commentary:

     
now that I'm old and sick
everyone saying
   how good I look
— John Brehm
  Frogpond 48.3, 2025

Footnote:

In paraphrasing Basho’s life, I have relied heavily upon the book, Matsuo Basho, by Makoto Ueda, Twayne Publishers, Inc, New York, 1970 available at the Haiku Foundation Digital Library, here:  Matsuo Basho

Author Bio, from Archie Carlos:
“Archie G. Carlos is a retired Certified Senior HR Professional, a wannabe sociologist, and a relatively-recent haiku enthusiast. In early 2022, after more than a decade of “dabbling,” he decided to spend a bit more time practicing haiku and senryu.

Carlos’ haiku/senryu have appeared in no more than a dozen publications. His recent awards include the following: Two Golden Haiku selected for display, 13th Golden Triangle Haiku Competition (2026); List of Ten Winners, 8th Basho-an International English Haiku Competition (2025); Nyusen (Third Prize), 30th International Kusamakura Haiku Competition (2025); Certificate of Commendation, 37th Ito-En Oi Ocha New Haiku Award (2025); Third Place, 12th Golden Triangle Haiku Contest (2025); Sakura Award, Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival Haiku Contest (2024).”

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

Comments: further discussion is invited below. Comments will close after a week when this post is archived.

THF strives to maintain a safe and friendly environment for our readers and site participants. Participation in our offerings assumes respectful and appropriate behavior of all parties. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason, at any time.

If you see something you feel may violate our Code of Conduct, please report it to the appropriate moderator (the host of this post) or the President here.