re:Virals 545

“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 David Cox was:

memorial bench...
she shares her chit-chat
with the pigeons
— Annie Wilson
Blithe Spirit Vol. 34, no.4, November 2024  

Introducing this poem, David Cox writes:

I chose this poem because it reminds me of the many benches that line my walk above the cliffs in Torquay. Many of these memorial benches bear the name of a loved one and a short phrase in memory of them. Some of them have been there for decades, possibly due to damage or the sponsorship having expired. The benches can become way markers or resting places on a walk.

The sounds and imagery of the poem are unobtrusive. In an increasingly isolating world, particularly where technology encroaches, superseding human interactions that would otherwise enrich our day-to-day lives, are we left with only pigeons to chat to? Or is it more likely that the greatest pleasures in life are simple: giving way to insouciance and appreciating the intrinsic value of what are perceived to be small or inconsequential activities? After all, what is a simpler pleasure than getting lost in the hypnotic flocking of pigeons?

Host comment (Susan):

Our verse this week is, as David Cox notes, an “unobtrusive” poem — an honest, straightforward, refreshingly accessible sketch from life, but with enough attention to craft to give it wings.

As an opening fragment, “memorial bench” is a powerful choice. Rich with emotional overtones of love, caring, grief, honor, remembrance, gratitude, and serenity, it demonstrates how much heft a keyword can carry in a verse that isn’t otherwise anchored in a season or a specific time of day.

The poem goes on to subtly and skillfully subvert reader expectation. Line three surprises with an avian — instead of the anticipated human — interlocutor, and makes us realize the playfulness of “chit-chat” in line two, where crumbs or other suitable bird fodder would have been the merely logical choice. This poetic sleight of hand adds gentle haikai humor which, together with a touch of sabi (in the sense of loneliness) make for a deftly balanced verse — a little happy, a little sad, and delightfully free from the sentimentality that “memorial bench” might have conjured in a different poem.

Altogether, the three common, everyday images Wilson employs  — bench, woman, pigeons — prompt an array of reader narratives. I appreciate how variously this week’s commentators interpret this spare scene, seeing in the protagonist an elderly woman, a young girl, a war survivor, or a widow, and in the action of the verse, intuiting an expression of grief, of respite and catharsis, of profound loneliness, of spiritual supplication, or of pleasure at its simplest.

The primary feeling I get from this verse is one of generosity, in both the spacious framework of its imagery that allows such disparate interpretations, and in the images themselves. Pivoting on the verb “shares,” the bench is a kind of offering, the woman’s affectionate “chit-chat” another, the pigeons gathered at the woman’s feet, another still. That “she” unabashedly talks with the birds endears me to this woman, a kindred spirit whoever “she” is.  I am drawn into this verse as this woman is drawn, for whatever the reason, to this bench, and to these birds, and as these birds are drawn, to her.

Uma Padmanabhan:

At a glance, the scene appears pretty open — an elderly woman seated on a park bench, speaking softly while pigeons peck at crumbs near her feet. Yet the word ‘memorial’ transforms the image. This is not just any bench, it’s a place marked by absence. Someone is remembered there. Perhaps someone she loved once and walked that park is now no more.

The bench is both witness and companion.

The woman’s chit-chat suggests informality, familiarity, even intimacy. She is not delivering a speech or offering a prayer; she’s conversing, chewing the cud of past memories. The birds feeding beside her are unjudging. They do not interrupt they simply gather ’round and receive.

The pigeons add another layer of meaning. They are humble city birds — ordinary, persistent and communal. Unlike swans or doves they are not romanticised. Their ordinariness grounds the poem. Grief here is not dramatic; it is woven into daily life. The woman, returns, sits speaks, feeds and remembers. Life continues in small gestures.

Sitarama Seshu Maringanti:

Annie Wilson’s haiku opens with a reference to a memorial bench – a common sight in public parks and cemeteries. Memorial benches are set up to commemorate individuals who are no longer with us. Their names with their dates of birth and death are engraved on the benches. This touching haiku depicts a woman sitting on a memorial bench and having a chit-chat with pigeons to share her grief with them about the death of someone close to her. The poet follows the tradition in showing the woman as seeking the help of the pigeons to act as her spiritual messengers to convey her strong and deep sense of loss. It is not unusual for poets to describe the birds as “blithe spirits.” Many ancient Sanskrit poets like Vamana Bhatta Bana depicted swans and other natural elements as messengers of love or of separation in their Sandesha Kavya.

Harrison Lightwater:

This haiku is about loneliness. The memorial bench suggests bereavement. The context, with the ellipsis, indicates that this is not the period of intense grief that follows immediately after a death, but the lonely life thereafter. There’s enough information to flesh out the general pronoun “she,” and to picture a widow, probably old, who funded the bench. Now living on her own, and starved of everyday conversation — chit-chat — she finds solace in talking to, and (I assume) caring for the pigeons by feeding them. Likely there will be some tender and private thoughts that she feels shy of unburdening herself to occasional acquaintances. They burble back. A bond between a lonely human and other living things.

Although the mise-en-scène could be at any season, pigeons or doves are often a spring kigo. (see editor footnote)*

A gentle verse that paints a common picture in a detached way, carries a considerable amount of suggestion in ten well-chosen words, and pulls a number of haiku strings.

Radhamani Sarma:

A beautiful senryu wherein Annie Wilson shares love, loneliness, and poignant moments of the past merging with the present. R.H. Blyth describes senryu as “moments of vision into, not the nature of things, but the nature of man…as in a flash of lightning.” After all, life is not for the living alone, life is also for loved ones who are no more, but are nonetheless still alive in the pages of recurrent past, where memory and shadow merge.

Starting with a lifeless object/image, this “memorial bench” nonetheless breathes life, reflecting the lives and sacrifices of innumerable souls with whom she is acquainted. The memorial bench is empty, isolated, maybe it is a passive listener to the feelings of the person seated there.

The second and third lines, “she shares her chit-chat / with the pigeons,” convey a message both descriptive and pictorial. She broods, partaking of the chatter around her, pigeons in numbers assembling on the bench and cooing, a friendly chit-chat for the speaker. Pigeons symbolize peace and unity. Perhaps she recalls the days when the soldiers shed their blood for the sake of nation to establish peace, and “memorial bench” is emblematic of past blood shed, merciless guns, wailing of the mothers, widows, orphaned children, and the nation’s bereavement; for loss of lives, revenue and above all peace and serenity. In these pigeons, she finds peace, an antidote to a past represented by the memorial bench. When man loses, birds and animals teach us.

A simple yet thrilling read.

Sudha Devi Nayak:

There is something immeasurably restful and profound about this haiku that engages with the reader. If the purpose of a haiku is to transmit and create a communion between the artist and recipient this haiku certainly does it.

I imagine a young girl taking time off from the insistent, cacophonous demands of daily living to be with the birds, on a memorial bench. Memorial benches are simple creations in parks, cemeteries and walkways in honour of someone who has passed on, inviting the passerby for a restorative pause. To slow one’s pace, to spend time leisurely, to reflect, to listen and talk to the birds, watching the light shifts, the flowers in bloom, the tree in green.

Our haikuist is there in a moment of calm, free to express herself to the pigeons crowding around her in camaraderie. Her chit chat with them delivers her from troubled thoughts that plague her mind, the mundane realities that seem to overwhelm her.

There is so much simplicity in the air unencumbered, full of the chatter of the birds that care neither for form or content but the sheer beauty of the moment, the joy of companionship.

She talks to them of things that matter to her, things that don’t, a stream of consciousness outpouring. The feathered creatures listen and talk to her with solicitude, without judgement, without censure, with total acceptance.

Talking to the pigeons is a welcome release, a liberation, a catharsis from tension and soul crushing ennui. She goes back rejuvenated, happier and we are left with the feeling that her conversation with the pigeons has been delightful and uplifting. Blessed be the Memorial bench and those who care to sit on it.

Urszula Marciniak:

They sat together on this bench for many years. They talked about everything, important and everyday matters. They were honest, but there were still a few things left unsaid. Perhaps for the other person’s good. Is it easier for her to confide her secrets to the birds now? Or maybe they only talk about small things. Which generation of birds is this? These ones didn’t know him. He exists only in her memory. But how much does she really know about him? The bench hasn’t changed at all, maybe a little old. No one has renovated it. She looks at its seat. She clutches the sack of grain tighter, and the birds watch impatiently.

Jonathan Epstein — listen to the grace notes:

The image of a “memorial bench” can be a heavy weight to drop on a poetic genre known for subtlety and lightness. Annie Wilson offsets this load by adding life to it, a charming scene that spotlights an inter-species relationship that softens the memento mori of the bench. A woman “shares her chit-chat” — not the expected bread crumbs or seeds — with park pigeons waiting for a handout. Instead of pigeon fare, she offers the birds an update on her life — the old, the new; whatever flutters from her mind. A gentle “sh-sh” hushing in “she shares” and the alliterative tie-in of three “ch” sounds reconcile the opposites of a living woman’s “chit-chat” and life’s impermanence as conveyed by “memorial bench.”

There’s an easy flow of energy between the woman and her winged audience as the birds bob around her feet. The inchoate pigeon calls act as verbal backchanneling, encouraging the woman to hand out more crumbs from her life.

Is she elderly? Homeless? Unstable? A regular at this bench? Whatever her age or status, she has no inhibitions in the company of pigeons. They, too, are part of the web of life, and talking to familiar animals is neither uncommon nor a sign of imbalance. More likely, it is therapeutic. As any connection to nature nourishes, so does a good haiku like this.

Annie’s aha moment easily becomes ours. We need only rest a moment in the words and merge into the images as we listen to the grace notes of light chatter and throaty coos.

Author Annie Wilson:

What an honour, thank you David Cox. I wrote this haiku at least three years ago, so can’t remember what sparked the images – perhaps a walk through the local park where there are several memorial benches and lots of pigeons. Looking at it now, it seems rather old-fashioned in style, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The images are simple and straightforward, but I hope there’s enough beneath the surface to allow space for the reader’s own reflections. Which is just what a memorial bench provides – a place for quiet reflection, and recollections if the bench commemorates a lost loved one. I was imagining a widow sitting on a bench dedicated to her late husband, who’s no longer there to share her chit-chat.

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

Poem for commentary:

puppet theater
someone calls me by
my childhood nickname
— Cezar Ciobica (Romania)
cattails 252, October 2025

Author Bio:

Annie Wilson has made her home in the Welsh Borders for over thirty years, where she has the good fortune to be surrounded by both beautiful countryside and her large garden, both of which are a continual source of inspiration for her. She been writing haiku for over five years, and has been widely published in journals in both Britain as well as the United States

Footnote:

William Higginson, in his “International Saijiki” classifies pigeons and doves as an “All-Year” topic, noting that they often appear at all times of the year in many parts of the world. (Higginson, Willian. Haiku World: An International Almanac, Kodansha International, 1996).

Likewise, Gabi Greve’s Haiku Database, Haiku Topics classifies pigeons and doves as a non-seasonal word or topic. However, “first pigeon,” would be a kigo for the New Year; and “cooing like a pigeon” is an early autumn kigo, referring to the manner in which hunters communicate by mimicking a pigeon or dove, so as not to rouse their prey’s suspicions in the forest.  Greve also notes “nest of a dove” (and presumably the nest of a pigeon) is a kigo for spring.

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

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