Heart Demons

For Heart Demons I write a personal essay each month. Currently I am working on December’s essay. I started the essay with no idea where it would go. Not an unusual method for me, but maybe it works better with poetry? The writing is good, but so far it seems to be two or three different things, each going off in its own direction. I enjoy the writing, and “do things you enjoy” seems to be advice to grievers. 

Yesterday’s post here about Kent’s haiku — and going through the stack of papers where I found it — made me sad. Only a few days after Kent died back in May I wrote a Heart Demons essay, tears pouring down my cheeks. I have plenty more to write about him, of course. So far the writing has mostly been about me, with the haiku post the first where Kent gets to talk for himself, if only for three lines. 

Heart Demons is hosted by a platform called Substack, which makes newsletters easy. Substack is the hot thing right now — or it was when I signed up last year. i created an account but writing a newsletter just seemed one more thing. How would it be special? I already have two blogs. I think what got Heart Demons into reality was Kent’s health. We couldn’t travel and I had energy to burn. I had Autobiography of a Book to promote, too, and Substack, being the hot new thing, was generating attention. Maybe I could take advantage of that? Somehow? 

As with LoveSettlement, Heart Demons gets its name from two poetry notebooks. I title my working notebooks after I’ve been writing in them for a few months. I write more about how I chose the title in the first Heart Demons essay. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do. 

haiku by Kent Mannis

Summer, Fall, Winter

Like Costco toilet paper 

Bulk products run low

My husband Kent wrote the occasional poem. In this case it’s the very American version of haiku, the 5-7-5 syllable count what makes it haiku. Kent does refer to the seasons, which is considered another requirement of Japanese haiku. The Japanese want a haiku to evoke the feeling of a particular time of year. Does Kent’s? Perhaps the poem means to evoke winter -- the “bulk products” of nature are abundant in summer, but gradually peter out in fall, winter offering the smallest amounts. 

Kent appends a note, “3 season Haiku.” Was that was the challenge? Write a poem that includes three of the four seasons?

Every so often I sort a pile of papers and today I found the haiku on a crumpled square of paper from a logo notepad. It is undated.