Dead Love: The Zombie Equinox

Posted by on Mar 20, 2011 in Between the Lines | 1 comment

As above so below … the equator.

Tonight, shortly before midnight, our cold dirtball of a planet stands up to the sun without slant. It’s the spring or vernal equinox and equilux—shunbun no hi, in Japan—a day to honor the ancestors and visit family graves, a day of dead love. This year it comes at the end of a week of natural disaster and man-made near-apocalyptic horror.

Of course I want to call attention to this day as a celebration of nature and a dire warning about remembering that we are a subset in a much larger equation.

So, from haiku poet Sakyoku, who died in the 18th century at the age of twenty-one:

Ara kanashi
hana no higan o
shide no tabi
—Sakyoku

Translation by Clément:

Oh, how sad
flowers of the spring equinox
journey deathward.

—Erin Orison, DEAD LOVE/the Daily Slice

 

 

  • Jobiggar

    Love the haiku — and Clement’s translation — as a fitting way to meditate on what a week this has been. May all the ancestors find peace once again.
    Joanna