November mist
written in the field
a mole’s message

(Woodpecker 1997:2; Modern Haiku 38:2, 2007)

© Wim Lofvers (1930 – 2007) (The Netherlands)

I read this haiku as a nature-sketching haiku. I think that in the third line, “mole” means the kind of animal or the mist’s “mole.” If it is the mist’s mole, it refers to a very small part of nature. So, I can say this nature-sketching haiku is highly up to date.

– Norie Umeda (Japan)

The first line opens as a curtain on an autumn whitened landscape faded into a light fog that makes everything have no edge. This verse prepares the reader for a dreamlike journey in a mysterious world where, at a first sight, writing is the poignant reference to the second line. But in the third line, we discover that there’s a secret code drawn in the earth. The underground job of a mole makes me think of our unconscious thoughts, instinctual pushes which dig into the depths of one’s soul.

We are invited to think to whom the message could be conveyed. Since the mole’s message comes to the surface from the underground, it can be read as a kind of suggestion that the Es-part (still not conscious) of the author wishes to become the Ego—so visible, no more hidden as before.

Also, it seems to me we have a movement of a search towards awareness and the sound of “m” repeated in the first and third lines creates a mesmerizing effect as if the meditative “om” is the key to reach it…

– Lucia Fontana (Italy)

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