It’s been spring for about a week now, which means it’s high time for some poetry.
By the way, next month is National Poetry Month, so expect some more poetry in the coming weeks. But for today, poems on the subject of spring by the Japanese poet Basho (1644-1694). I discussed Basho in a previous post. He was a student of classical Chinese poetry, Taoism, Zen, and became the most famous poet in Japan during the Edo period (1603-1867).
He is often thought of as a haiku master, but as Dr. David Landis Barnhill, University of Wisconsin, in his book Basho’s Haiku, points out “it is most accurate to speak of Basho as a master of ‘haikai’ poetry.” Basho worked with the tradition of “linked verses” (renku or renga) in which two or more poets contributed alternating parts of a poem. Dr. Barnhill further explains,
In linked-verse, whether classical renga or its haikai form, the first stanza (hokku) sets the stage for the entire poem and is considered particularly important. One feature that distinguishes hokku from other stanzas is that is must contain a a season word (kigo), which designates which season the poem was written in: hokku are by definition poems about the current season. A hokku must also be a complete statement, not dependent on the succeeding stanza. Because of its importance to linked verses and it completeness, haikai poets began to write them as semi-independent verses, which could be used not only as a starting stanza for a linked verse, but also could be appreciated by themselves. So the individual poems Basho created are, properly speaking, ‘hokku.’”*
Now on to the poems. These are my own interpretations, not that they differ greatly from any other translations.
spring awakened
only nine days and look –
these fields and mountains!
slowly spring
is coming back
moon and plum
spring of this year
how enthralling
the sky of wayfaring
spring rain
dripping from the leaking roof
down the wasp’s nest
spring unseen –
back of the mirror
plum blossoms
spring –
a hill without a name
veiled in morning fog
Kannon’s temple –
gazing at its tiled roof
through clouds of blossoms
Note: Kannon is the Japanese translation of Kuan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion
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* David Landis Barnhill, Basho’s Haiku: Selected Poems of Matsuo Basho, State University of New York Press, 2004, 4