re:Virals 573

“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 Radhamani Sarma was:

quiet as the grave
the overwhelming silence
of days gone by
— Mike Jones
LEAF (Journal of The Daily Haiku) Issue Nine, April 2026

Introducing this poem, Radhamani writes:

Acceptance and surrender — the essential core of life.  In the changing patterns of life’s circle, faith and hope are essential.  The writer focuses upon the inevitable end of life in the first line. It’s difficult to digest and accept the end; yet one needs to be quiet as the grave, as opposed to wailing and weeping. To me, the “overwhelming silence” represents emphatic, total surrender to the will of God, despite suffering. The graveyard is one step ahead, the words “quiet” and “silence” have similar meanings, but with different perspectives. All of a person’s internalized journey, the hardships, setbacks, lone battles, unanswered questions, the injustices of this cruel world, are silenced in the quiet of time.  A powerful write.

Host comment (Susan):

In haiku and senryu, themes of mortality and loss, memory and forgetting, solitude and silence, are often evoked by means of concrete imagery, seasonal references, or even traditional kigo, often those associated with winter: bare trees, fallen leaves, winter wind, withered fields, and the like.

This week’s verse is unusual, in that it achieves its forlorn emotional landscape — its “pall of sadness” as our winning commentator puts it — without the ordinary juxtaposition of concrete images. Instead, identical concepts — “silence” and “quiet” — are offered in an internal comparison that includes two idiomatic expressions — “quiet as a grave” and “days gone by.” The inclusion of an intensifier, “overwhelming” is another striking stylistic choice in a form often ruled by restraint of overt emotion.

“Quiet as the grave” immediately suggests the common expression that means either profound quiet or deep secrecy. Because it is an idiom, it doesn’t necessarily summon a particular place or thing such as a gravesite, even if the author’s intention was to do so. Likewise, the phrase “days gone by” generally refers to some unspecified time in a more distant past, but could also be taken literally to mean days immediately preceding some current event unnamed in the poem.

The  overall effect of the use of these idioms is to leave a reader untethered either to a particular moment in time, to a particular place, or to any particular thing. One is left to simply ponder silence and the passing of time. Commentators were polarized about the verse’s ultimate impact, some characterizing it as “powerful,” “poignant,” “a perfect rumination on life and loss.” Others, though, were less satisfied. A few were provoked to rewrite the verse by removing the intensifier, or by substituting synonyms for the idioms.  Another was left hoping for clarification from the poet.

In the introductory poem to his book, “Presents of Mind,” Jim Kacian, President of the Haiku Foundation and doyen of all things haiku, writes: “Every object is possessed of silence / . . . Haiku is composed of language. / It cannot be composed of silence. / But unlike most language, / It attempts to point to silence.” This week’s verse is a meditation upon the profundity of silence, without presenting the objects that possess that silence; one could say it is more about sensibility, and less about the senses.  For contrast, here is an effort from Shiki that points to silence, as well as  to “days gone by,” but does so by letting the things themselves engage our senses:

      Only the gate
Of the abbey is left
      On the winter moor.
      (trans. Blyth)

Jennifer Gurney:

Mike Jones’ poem is very poignant to me. Having lost my mother, grandmother and husband in the last five years, I know deep grief up close and personal.  Yet rather than feeling saddened by his poem, I feel a kindred spirit with Jones. His reverence for life, and for death, is felt.

He is so spot-on that the “overwhelming silence” is the surprise of grief. What once filled our ears – their laughter, voice, support, love – can now only fill our hearts and memories. I am one of the lucky ones who has the voices of my loved ones saved on my old phone. I can recharge it and listen when I need to. But after their voice messages are played, the white noise of grief returns.

It is rather odd how the brain processes grief. At first, we cannot absorb the news and our brains keep trying to fill the hole of their leaving with anticipation of seeing them around the next corner. Our brain spins trying to acknowledge, to absorb, to process their death. We long for their return into our lives and yet they are still there, ever present in our minds and hearts. Even years later.

And then there is the silence when others do not know what to say to comfort us, and all too many say nothing. They mean well, but we are left in solitude, much of the time, to process alone. Some days, all I want to hear is their name mentioned, by anyone. A story told to keep them alive. But there is none. Even soon after their death. As if others fear reminding us of their loss. How can I be reminded of something that never leaves my mind?

No one prepares us for the depth of grief. And certainly, no one describes the silence of the longing for their return.

It is interesting that Jones uses the word grave. In two of my losses, there is no grave. But I have created a place to visit them anyway. For my mom, it is the last place I was, on a trail to a beloved lake, when I last spoke with her on the phone. For my husband, it is a memorial bench I had installed on the lake where we lived, loved and wed. The bench is at the very place where we said our vows. This poem harkens the silence I encounter at these holy spaces.

There is a soothing quality to this poem. The words chosen create a slow cadence, a softness, that the soul needs at a time such as this. I will come back to this poem as a touch-stone in my journey of healing.

Alan Summers:

I have enjoyed the poem though I do have some thoughts.  This poem seems to be purely about looking back, for whatever reason or whatever stage in life. There may be no definite grave and graveyard/cemetery. I can’t tell if ‘grave’ is a concrete image or an English idiom, and I feel I need something as a strong literal anchor.

The idiom “as quiet as the grave” (or “as silent as the grave”) can mean taking a secret permanently to a burial place and that “dead men tell no tales,” as in a kept promise of withholding the past, and information connected with it, and concealment of a truth.

ORIGINS OF ‘Grave’ ‘Silent’ ‘Secrets’:
The origins of the English word “grave” (noun/burial place) as by the Oxford English Dictionary view of the first listed usage is around 1000 CE in the Old English poem The Seafarer.
In the original Old English text of the poem, it appears in lines discussing the futility of burying a dead kinsman with gold:

“Þeah þe he græf wille golde strewan…”
Though the grave with gold he would strew…
Translated by A. S. Kline©2010

It was in the mid 1500s, when the word silent took on a new figurative sense. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in this sense for silent:
undisclosed, secret; unrecorded; omission, etc…

And here I turn to my CINNAMON ROLL method to see how a synonym can play a role, as we have both quiet and silence, often meaning the exact same thing at least in tone.

quiet:
hushed, noiseless, soundless, placid, restful, subdued, reticent, low-key

silence:
on mute/mute/muteness, calm, lull, peace, reticence, secrecy, stillness, laconism, reserve, clandestineness, and even this atmospheric word! i.e. “obmutescence”: a state of silence

obmutescence
the overwhelmingness
of days gone by

obmutescence
the overwhelmingness
of days gone

subdued as the grave
the overwhelming secrecy
of my own days

as the grave lulls
the overwhelming hush
of days gone by

as if on mute
the overwhelming peace
of days gone by

as if on mute
the clandestineness
of days gone by

These are all just thoughts, though I’m looking for an anchor, aka mooring, hook, ballast, grapnel, cornerstone, linchpin,  to hang my reader’s hat upon … and  here is one:

the old watermill
now only a reflection
in the still millpond

— Mike Jones
LEAF (Journal of The Daily Haiku) Issue Four August 2024

Although I’m wary of the over-use of ‘old’ and ‘still,’ they work well here.  We have concrete imagery of a watermill, and the millpond and all that is left is a reflection.  Pure beautiful magic.

Urszula Marciniak:

An absence of auditory stimuli or other sensory impressions can bring relief and respite, yet it can also be a source of genuine torment.

Past events — even those captured on film — cannot be brought back to life.

They have receded into the past, leaving behind only silence and emptiness. Time will heal these wounds, but no one enjoys periods of waiting or states of transition. Suffering prevails in the here and now, and words of comfort from those who have lived longer or suffered more bring no solace.

Each person must live through — or wait out — their own silence.

Dan Campbell:

CRITIQUE OF A POEM BY A WORD SURGEON

The poem arrives on the operating table with one word causing trouble: overwhelming.

It isn’t a bad word; rather, it is carrying out the work that the poem has already performed.

The phrase “quiet as the grave” sets the emotional tone right away. We are dealing with stillness, death, and absence.

Next comes: “the overwhelming silence.” At this point the surgeon stops. What would occur if we made a single clean incision?

quiet as the grave
the silence
of days gone by

The poem changes. It becomes quieter. Above all, it starts to act in a way that is similar to the thing it is describing; while the original statement tells us that the silence is overwhelming, the revised version merely presents the silence and lets us feel how heavy it is.

Maybe the poem has no need to tell us that the silence is overwhelming. The work of the grave has already been carried out. And “days gone by” goes even further. The four ordinary words unexpectedly open up a wide emotional realm—such as certain days, childhood, a marriage, friends who are now dead, a house that is no longer standing, summers which seemed endless, or a younger version of oneself? The poem wisely does not give an answer.

It is there that the thing’s eerie quality resides.

In contrast, the word ‘overwhelming’ closes off some of that openness by stating the intensity before the reader has had the opportunity to come across it.

The word also contains a fascinating contradiction since overwhelming means enormous, surges, floods, and crashes over us. Silence isn’t capable of doing any of those things. The paradox can certainly be defended; silence has a way of overwhelming us, for the silence that follows a person’s death can sound louder than any conversation, and an empty house may seem deafening simply because the familiar voice is no longer there.

The diagnosis is by no means simple. The surgeon must never take out an organ just because it stands out. The issue is whether the word “overwhelming” brings about the poem’s central paradox or simply accounts for an emotion which is already conveyed by the other words.

Try another operation:

quiet as the grave
the hollow silence
of days gone by

The silence now has a structural quality. The word ‘hollow’ conjures an empty room, an abandoned shell, something that used to hold life. Now the poem descends.

But the most radical operation remains:

quiet as the grave
the silence
of days gone by

Nothing replaces “overwhelming.” And perhaps nothing should. The space left vacant by the use of the adjective then becomes an integral part of the poem.

The lesson of the Word Surgeon is that if a poem is about absence, then subtraction can take on the role of meaning; and if a poem is about silence, then using fewer words can make the silence audible.

Revision can involve finding a more powerful word. That sometimes involves having the courage to leave the wound open.

Alan Harvey:

Mike Jones has written a quiet poem which is stated at the opening. Quiet as a gravesite. As quiet as past days from your memory.  Your memory may include a loud remembrance but resides in the quiet chemistry of your mind.  Is this also the overwhelming silence of days gone by?

Here is where I diverge from Jones’ quiet thoughts. Days gone by affect us tremendously, some would say loudly. Past events mold individuals in the present. So I am not certain how to take “overwhelming.” Are we looking at traumatic events of days gone by? The ones that lurk within, appearing quietly in the background until they reassert themselves?

It will be interesting to hear Mike Jones’ thoughts on his “quiet” haiku. Thank you for writing such a sparse, thought-provoking poem.

Sudha Devi Nayak — like a pall of sadness:

The haiku falls on us like a pall of sadness, a wistful remembrance of days curtained off by a silence that is overpowering. Yet the silence can be redemptive, too, when memories do not go extinct, but survive to sustain and give solace. When life takes an about-turn, we can only cope by means of memory — fragments of life seen through lighted windows;  “memory mixed with desire.”

Memory can though, be painful, especially of a past that is forever beyond reach, inaccessible, and irretrievable. It could be the mere passing of time where happier days are swept aside like swirls of autumn leaves, or a deep loss or separation that has spelt a cessation of a symphony mid-note.

The universe is full of silence, the mountains standing in solitary grandeur, the rivers running in muted murmur, the sun and the moon shining, the stars twinkling in absolute silence. Then there is the silence of the graveyard where the confusion and the chaos, the ambition, exuberance and desire are at last laid to rest, a complete withdrawal. In his celebrated “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” Thomas Gray writes: “The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power / And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave / Awaits alike the inevitable hour / The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”

There is a permanent quiet, a heavy stillness where names carved in stone speak louder than living voices. Mariana Enriquez says in her book “Somebody is Walking on Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys”: “Where the name and the date remain a voice that says I was here, now I’m gone. Maybe no one knows my name any more but someday someone will remember me.”

A perfect rumination, an evocative haiku: it is a meditation on life and loss, being and nothingness, the universal journey of women and men.

Author Mike Jones:

I regularly walk ’round my village and often visit its graveyard. It is so peaceful there, a haven for wildlife, and it gives me space to think and compose. This haiku was inspired by reading some of the gravestone inscriptions and reflecting on the past.

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

     
fifty plus years
my heart still races
at her touch 
— Bryan Sharpe
Louisiana USA
Haiku Foundation Haiku Dialogue, August 19TH 2026

Author Bio:  I am married with two grown-up children and live with my wife in a quiet Oxfordshire village. I have always been interested in poetry and have enjoyed reading it all my life. Now in my late 70s I have more time for writing. I started writing haiku during the Covid lockdown and enjoy the daily challenge of The Daily Haiku group. My other main interests are music (I sing, arrange and play several instruments) and the natural world, in particular, bird-watching.

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

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