re:Virals 566

“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 Keith Evetts. This week’s poem, chosen by hostMelissa in lieu of last week’s winner Peggy Bilbro was:

     
tide
the castle sinks
into its moat
—Edward Cody Huddleston
  Wales Haiku Journal Summer 2026

Introducing this poem, Melissa writes:

This makes me smile, I recall building many a sandcastle as a child, all that time and effort only for the tide to come in and wash it away. This poem reminds me that life is much bigger than I, that I am not in control, that life basically has other plans. 

Host comment (Keith):

Sic transit gloria mundi.  A lesson first given to many a small child with a little bucket and spade on a beach.  My first thought on reading this verse.  The second was Ozymandias, one of my all-time favourite poems during a life in international affairs.  “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!“… I wonder how many leaders currently are building vain monuments to themselves. Ozymandias also occurred to another reader this week.  The third was, as with last week’s “tidal surge,” the unstoppable tide as demonstrated to his courtiers by King Cnut the Great.

Composed on reflection after observing the detail of a small, common, real-and-present event,  and by circumstance situated in summer, Edward’s haiku seems artfully artless. “A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. ”  As the author’s own comment confirms, the key revision is the omission of “sand” from “sandcastle.”  It is this, peeling back to the core word “castle,” that triggers much of the depth above.  Sand is implied in the situation described.  We have three real-and-present noun elements to link. None is abstract, although tide is associated with time, as is the implied fourth noun, sand.  There is no “personal thought of the poet” attached. The images, their associations, and the link between them is left for the reader to contemplate as did the poet. The castle, our supposed enduring refuge, crumbles, merging with the sands. The moat, the barrier dug to keep out unknown others, ends up undermining the castle.  Tide and time levels all.  Not so much the enduring and the changing, but the assertion that all changes, and becomes the same. The levelling effect of tide and time is not a new thought, but here is it expressed in a succinct haiku way. The moat adds a needed fresh twist of complexity.

If all is levelled in the end, why do we bother with anything, why take measures against a long-term future that is all too predictable?  Is it “nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”? Will our very efforts “to take up arms and, by opposing, end them” end up undermining us?  Echoes of the Zhuangzi, too.  But ah, there exists another story, one of emergent, battling life.  Long may our children build castles in the sand.

For all the above couched in plain and admirably economical images, well done the poet.

Alan Summers:

The single utterance in both the start of the verse, and any child or adult who has created at least a half-decent sandcastle only to see the tide come in. Or in some cases it’s an oddly joyful sight for the castle to become besieged and then taken over by the elements. It’s a passage of time, marked more clearly with the tide moving in, than even the sun starting to dip. We are lost in time though the water will lend a reminder.

Perhaps in some cases the waiting for the tide if all important, as the final creation/destruction cycle and even time to go home. I can imagine different children and different parents mentally annunciating ‘tide’ or even quietly or loudly uttering the word to themselves, their child, and is the child an inner child or their first born or a miracle later born child.

So much depends on the bucket and spade without a wheelbarrow, and that wheelbarrow is the moon, even if not noticeable.

QUESTION to myself:
“If the moon can’t be seen in the day does it really still control the tides?”

GHOSTLY ANSWER:
“Yes, the moon still controls the tides even when you cannot see it during the day.”

Okay, thanks for that!

Tide!

Anne Marie Johnson:

This haiku brings to mind the potential and unforeseen consequences that can come from the defenses we install to protect ourselves from pain, with the tide being those uncontrollable circumstances, although perhaps predictable, that can send our defenses into overdrive, potentially causing us to lose touch with who we are. There is hope here too, though… the castle sinks but doesn’t necessarily disappear or cease to exist.

Urszula Marciniak:

We like to feel safe. We try to shield our inner world with a thick, high wall. We isolate ourselves so that nothing bad happens to us. Or anything good. We risk drowning in our own thoughts and opinions, refusing to confront the world.

Or maybe we should take the risk and swim across the moat. Maybe the world we’ve only seen from above and in the distance is friendly, not terrifying. But this moat is so wide and deep. The water must be cold. We don’t know if anyone on the other side will help us get out. I guess we’ll stay in the castle. Meanwhile, the water level is rising.

Sudha Devi Nayak:

Amidst the rise and fall of the ocean tides the castle stands stately and proud,impregnable in its isolation. It breathes an air of sanctified peace away from the cacophony,the quiet desperation of humanity, the unfulfilling routine and misplaced values, burying it’s desires under the daily grind and safe choices. This is the moment to unwind, unfurl your spirit with the castle in the foreground inspiring in its strength and solitude.
Suddenly there is a turn in the tide and there is the castle floundering, unsteady, tilting sinking into the moat surrounding it. The image may be real or it may be illusory in the rising waters.
Thus our sense of contentment and wellbeing can flounder and the ground beneath our feet gives way even as we are being transported to a calmer world,a cocooned existence that slowly unravels. The haiku reminds me of the celebrated lines of Matthew Arnolds “Dover Beach”
” …for the world which seems
to lie before us like a land of dreams
so various,so beautiful, so new
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light
Nor certitudes,nor peace,nor help for pain
And we are here as on a darkling plain
swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night”

Radhamani Sarma:

A simple yet powerful haiku depicting the command of nature.  More than reading: watching with our naked eyes, viewing by the oceanic sight , a perfect observation for joy and at the same time a fearful spectacle. If one scans each aspect of the following, one can derive variant approaches ; the related terms such as waves, oceanic storm, tidal upsurge and the music emanating from the rings rolling to and fro, ancient gifts from the majestic shore.
it is a miracle and mystery, tides both low and surge, affecting geographical nuances, and the lives of humans day to day in all possible ways beyond description.

Beginning with the term “tide” gives us space for further meanings. The next two lines, capture an image in a potentially devastating way, a gulp in a  way. Tidal water, charybdis, bypassing its rim, reaches the castle, a ancient fortification; a strong edifice. Indeed I learnt a new term “moat ” a visual image deeper in its connotations; rising water level is such that the moat devours its castle, rather than the castle sinking into its moat; even the fortification is weakened, reduced to nothing.  There is a paradox. The moat is a wide ditch supposed to be a defensive armour and the castle sinks into it. The irony, the power of the moat is stupendous.
The castle, however strong is unable to withstand the force of water, hence the collapse into its moat.
Here is very apt quote , a contrasting connotation:
“reflections of the battlements shimmered in the deep green moat, casting an image of enduring strength, an image that defied the very siege of time.”
-Karen Azinger, The Flame Priest

To conclude, anything might happen, all due to the Time factor.

Sitarama Seshu Maringanti:

I had visited, as a tourist, many a fort and castle in India, especially those near the western and eastern coast. Edward Cody Huddleston’s haiku obviously refers to castles constructed close to the sea shore with the added protection of a moat. The moat is a wide and deep body of water that makes it difficult for an invader to cross and enter the castle. It is therefore difficult to conceive a situation of even a part of a strong castle sinking into a moat, tide or no tide. Castles were built on strong foundations, a little distance from the moat surrounding them. It is however possible to imagine the effect of erosion, over time, eating into the foundations of a castle and weakening its structure. The castle walls may sag in such a circumstance and sink into the moat. The haiku challenges one’s poetic interpretation.

Sean Murphy—’the lone and level sands’:

“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
the lone and level sands stretch far away.”
-Percy Shelly, “Ozymandias”

“Sand” is the operative word here, defining this haiku through its absence. The implication of a sand castle is clear, but by omitting the word, the poem lays bare a layer of representation, asking us to consider the sand castle as effigy for a grander structure. In that sense, the poem has three subjects: the tide, the castle, and the sand castle. The castle, heavy with stone and history and the pride of its builders, is undone by the same tide as its humble counterpart. They are, in the end, the same.

Author Edward Cody Huddleston:

This poem was inspired by a family trip to St. Simons Island in Georgia. I didn’t have my phone or a notebook with me, so I had to memorize the haiku upon composing it. There was a literal sandcastle, but it didn’t have a moat and the tide wasn’t about to claim it. The first word that comes to mind when I think of this haiku is impermanence. What are we if not sandcastles waiting for the tide to sweep us away?

The haiku is a second draft. When I first wrote it down, I went with:

tide
the sandcastle sinks
into its moat

However, I decided the poem didn’t need to reveal exactly what was happening so early. Also, I like the alternative reading: an actual medieval-style castle collapsing into its moat as the tide rises. In the minds of the children that built it, that’s probably what’s happening. Kings, knights, and peasants alike trying to escape the sea’s indifferent might.

Thanks to all who sent commentaries. As the contributor of the commentary reckoned best this week, [[winner]] 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:

     
more airstrikes
the deepening red
of the poppy
—Archie G. Carlos
  THF Haiku Dialogue – Allusion – Engaging with Other Forms – Long List, June 4, 2025

Footnote:

Bio:
Edward Cody Huddleston was born in Voorhees Township, New Jersey, and now lives on Muscogee land in Baxley, Georgia, where he works as a radio DJ. In his free time, he reads frequently, caffeinates concerningly, and plays endlessly with his dogs, a pair of miniature schnauzers named Chip and Cookie. You can read selections of his poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction online at echuddleston.com.

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

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