solar eclipse—
the silent beauty
of wildflowers
Comment: a haiku that plays on the contrast between light and shadow, visible and invisible. In fact, while the eclipse (nisshoku 日食) in line 1 swallows the solar rays, the wildflowers seem to acquire an unexpected, unknown beauty despite the loss of their color brightness. This ‘subterranean’ charm (yū 幽) emerging from the reading is therefore emphasized by the ‘silent’ adjective (shizuka 静か) and by the em dash serving as a kireji 切れ字, which seems to prolong the overall sense of stasis. Please also note the contrast between the sharp ‘s’ sound crossing the entire poem and the wide, soothing ‘e’ vowel.
