another shooting
leaves of my prayer plant
unfurl
Modern Haiku, 53:1, Winter/Spring 2022
Barbara Sabol
Commentary: By juxtaposing human tragedy with the silent, automatic rhythms of nature, this sociopolitically conscious haiku creates a powerful tension.
The plant’s name in L2 evokes the phrase “thoughts and prayers,” often criticized as an empty, passive response to gun violence. The irony of the plant’s “unfurling” in L3 is deepened through its biological blindness.
At night, the prayer plant folds its leaves upward like hands in prayer; during the day, it unfurls them. By showing the plant unfurling after a shooting in L1, the haiku suggests several possibilities: the absence of genuine, action-oriented prayer; the reopening of a wound; or nature simply moving on, indifferent to human trauma.
The plant acts out of pure instinct — nyctinasty — highlighting the cold contrast between a predictable natural world and a chaotic human one. This irony resonates especially in the United States, a country with more guns than people, where mass shootings have become part of the daily landscape.
