Poetry Friday--Memento Mori

Memento Mori is translated from the Latin as "remember death."

Remember that you, too, will die. Remember that death is part of the circle of life. Remember those people death has taken from you.

It is not, as one may hasten to conclude, a depressing topic for short form poetry!

There is an interesting discussion about death haiku, which you can find at Charlotte Digregorio's blog where she has an interview with Robert Epstein. Epstein's new book is Checkout Time is Soon. It is a follow-up to Checkout Time is Noon. None of the sample haiku included with the post strike me as depressing. In fact, the one that begins "packing..." is quite funny! (Read more about Epstein and death poems here.)

I write about death all the time, although, if I write haiku, its brevity can lead to interpretations other than death. It all depends upon the reader and his or her own life experience. Here's an example from 2015:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

words not needed
the tempo of her rocking
delivers the news


I'm also fond of haunting (pun intended) graveyards. Visiting a well-kept cemetery is like spending time in a little-used park--peaceful and a great place to wander. I enjoy reading about the lives summarized on gravestones, and speculating about the true stories. Here are two graveyard poems from my files:

From 2017:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

graveyard
a dusting of snow changes
one's perspective


From 2014:

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

followed by
a swarm of
mosquitoes
I read the dates
on the headstones
one after another

I find it interesting that when I wrote this, four years ago, I had never heard of the cherita form. I have since adopted the cherita as my form of choice. This poem, with a minimum of tweaking, could easily be a cherita! (If you're unfamiliar with the form, you'll find a definition on the right-hand side of the page near the top.)


The following I wrote recently. I used a photo I had taken in 2008 at Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, MA. I was doing research at the time for a subject in Women of the Bay State, Mary Eliza Mahoney. Mahoney was a child of freed slaves, was the first black woman in the U. S. to receive professional nurses training (graduated in 1879). She was buried in Woodlawn and I took photos of her monument for possible use in the book. While there, I took a gazillion photos of other markers and things that I found interesting. I've been using them as inspiration ever since.

© Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.

Text:

old graveyard

the littlest souls
with little markers

a marble lamb
remembrance of a child
too young for a name


Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge is hosting the Round-Up this week. Be sure to stop by!