he digs
I daffodil
forty-odd autumns
Kingfisher, 7, 2023
Michele Root-Bernstein
Commentary: Structurally and syntactically speaking, Nichele's haiku alludes to the following haiku about the departure of friends:
I go
you stay --
two autumns
Masaoka Shiki (often wrongly attributed to Yosa Buson)
Thematically speaking, L3 makes this seasonal activity described in Ls 1&2 an intimate, decades-long bonding between a couple. And this denominal verb, daffodil, fresh and natural, fits smoothly with the verb in L1,"digs," and it is layered with multiple meanings: the speaker is plopping daffodil bulbs into the holes that her partner is digging or she is "flowering" in some way...
For more examples about denominalization, a practice of using a noun as a verb, see To the Lighthouse, Denominalization
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