muezzin's call
the scent of magnolia
enters the mosque
© Cezar Florescu
It's amazing, the way sound can manage our moods. The cry of a baby. The loud horn of a car from an irritant driver. The alleluias from our church choirs. All of the above jolts us in different ways. Add fragrance to each and a totally new event is there for our brain to translate into feelings and responses.
I remember as a child growing up in Chaguanas Trinidad, hearing the muezzin's call. I had at that time no understanding of what it was, having been a Roman Catholic child and not schooled in the ways of other religious practices. Later as an adult the scant knowing of other's and their view and practices in God worship allowed me to make comparisons. So immediately on reading Cezar's poem there is the parallel of church bell and the smell of incense. A reverence appeal occurs in my mind even though i do not know the a Magnolia flower, personally.
What makes this a winner. The tease to the senses, the pull of intrigue, the setting of a story being told. I think. The skill of 'toriawase' features in Cezar 's haiku of three lines fifteen syllables. A haiku lifted apart from others by his peers in this kukai.
In ' Haiku and the five senses' it is stated that "The five main senses are some of the most important tools that we use to perceive the world...When you read a well written haiku you should be able to feel at least one or more of these senses." [Haiku and the five senses - http://dev.everydayhaiku.ca/haiku-and-the-five-senses/]
Well Done Cezar Florescu
Review by gillena cox; Founder/coordinator-Caribbean Kigo Kukai
