Nice when they come, Nice when they go. — Holiday Road
Bashō no yōna, after Christmas 2023
What a wonderful feelin’ Watching the ones we love … Why can’t it remain,
Ray Charles, That Spirit of Christmas
1983
Funniest Christmas movie ever — Christmas Vacation, starring Chevy Chase as a beleaguered father who wants an old-fashioned Griswold Family Christmas. Beverley D’Angelo is the dutiful wife. Then family shows up, and Cousin Eddy in the RV with his family and Snots, the dog. Lindsay Buckingham’s “Holiday Road” doesn’t appear in the movie, but it readily comes to mind.
“Christmas Vacation” replaces it. Even better is Ray Charles singing “That Spirit of Christmas” asking,
“Why can’t it remain. All through the year, Each day the same?”
Evening Snow At Kanbara Along the Tokaido Road, by Utagawa Hiroshige
Fukagawa, Basho-an, his cottage, Year 8 of the Enpo era, 1680 Basho 37 years old
If the rich eat fine cuts of meat and the poor, radishes, then Basho has a treat this week, dried salmon.
雪の朝 独リ干鮭を噛み得タリ yuki no ashita / hitori karazake o / kami e tari
A snowy morning here by myself chewing dried salmon.
Matsuo Basho, near Christmas, 1680
yuki (snow) no (particle with many uses) ashita (morning) / hitori (alone) karazake (dried salmon) o (particle, on) / kami e tari (able to bite, chewing)
My powers of translation are extremely limited. I wonder if there is not something more at play here. 噛み kami is chew. It is a homophone with 神, meaning a deity or God. 得 which forms part of e tari hints at obtaining something of benefit. If Basho is referring to fresh salmon, smoked and dried, he is talking about Sockeye salmon that runs from November to December.
The dried salmon, no matter how dry, is a treat.
Today, salmon are released into the Sumida River that borders Fukagawa where Basho had his cottage.
Merry Christmas
If there is a Christmas haiku for Matsuo Basho, this one comes close.
I do not always refer to the Era names in identifying the date of the haiku. Era names are created based on a significant event. This one was great fire in Kyoto. And the era name, Enpo, meant ‘prolonged wealth,’ the hope that after the fire prosperity would come. The era lasted 8 years. Then the shogun died and a new one was chosen. And Matsuo Basho moved from Edo, the capital, to Tokugawa, to be alone.
Salmon, grilled with rosemary and marjoram, image by robsonmelo
Five days to Christmas Sedgwick County, Kansas, no snow
Bashō no yōna, the author of this blog about all things haiku (and Basho), has a neighbor. One could call him Sora, Basho’s neighbor (in Fukagawa, and his traveling companion on the Oku no Hosomichi). That would be a stretch. We’ll just call him Bob. Bob mows his yard each week in the summer and fall. Come December, he loves to rake the leaves.
But that is such a pointless task, especially if its windy.
Raking leaves in late December A Sisyphean task — pointless
Bashō no yōna, Five days to Christmas, 2023
Bob rakes, but the wind wins.
Note. Sisyphus, the guy who rolled the boulder up the mountain each day only to see it drop.
At the park by the pond near the creek and the woods, by the empty baseball fields where kids play in summer, out for a walk with the dogs
It is sunny and warm With not a whisper of wind Somewhere between Fall and Winter
Bashō no yōna, a week before Christmas, 2023
The week before Christmas.
Ducks and geese, all day long Are at Peace on the pond Why can’t we?
Bashō no yōna, a week before Christmas, 2023
The other day I was reading Basho’s haiku about the withering wind the kind that strips a tree of leaves and turn one’s cheeks quite red. Today it’s quite nice.
こがらしや頬腫痛む人の顔 Kogarashi ya hoobare itamu hito no kao
The wind that wilts the leaves. Swells my cheeks and aches My face.
Matsuo Basho, Between Fall and Winter, 1690
Secret Spots
Children have more of them and dogs discover them easily. Secret spots were imagination takes hold of the mind. As we wander one wonders as we grow older do we forget to act more like children and dogs.
It’s not a public park, but one of those secret spots one comes across and claims for one’s own, but still is willing to share with other intrepid souls who appreciate its beauty. One comes here to see how things change from season to season, and year to year.
Japan’s Full Moon of December is scheduled to appear on the 27th of December, 2023. That is, unless it is snowing and snowing.
雪と雪今宵師走の名月か Yuki to yuki koyoi shiwasu no meigetsu ka
It snows and snows. Tonight’s the full moon of December, One wonders
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1684
Comedians say jokes with k sounds, sound funnier and funnier the more k’s you say. Basho’s haiku has four k’s. Ka, I wonder.
December, 1684
Home for the Holidays Ueno, Mie province Basho, age 40
In 1684, Basho returned to Ueno in Mie province, the place of his birth. There he and some of his disciples work on a collection of haiku, published under the name Winter Collection.
[Yuki (snow, snows) to (and) yuki (snows) koyoi (tonight) shiwasu (December by the lunar calendar) no (possessive particle, of) meigetsu (full moon) ka (interrogative, one wonders)]
Shiwasu
Because its December, I am rushing, getting my shopping all done.
Bashō no yōna, December 2023
In the Japanese lunar calendar, the twelfth month is called Shiwasu, literally, the master, the teacher, the monk is running, trying to get everything done.
Holidays
We (here in America) have Christmas, the Japanese have dozens of celebrations during December. One of the most beautiful are the Lantern Festivals (held several times a year). No wonder there is pandemonium in rushing to get everything done.
雪と雪今宵師走の名月か Yuki to yuki koyoi shiwasu no meigetsu ka
Ten days before Christmas, the shopping is done, the house is festive, thanks to the wife. Bashō no yōna, the 21st century disciple of Matsuo Basho (aren’t we all?), has one job. Let the dog out in the morning. So, he gets up, makes the coffee, and finds the dog at the back door, looking puzzled.
It is raining outside.
It’s raining outside, The dog’s at the door, she pauses, To go or stay, we wonder!
Bashō no yōna, December 2023
No one likes the rain in December.
初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也 hatsu shigure saru mo komino o hoshige nari
first winter shower (first freezing drizzle) a monkey, it seems, wants something to wear, like us.
Matsuo Basho, Monkey’s Raincoat, Winter 1689
hatsu (first) shigure (cold autumn/winter rain) saru (monkey) mo (too, also) komino (something to wear) o hoshige (wanting something, i.e. to wear, a raincoat) nari (also)
Monkey’s Raincoat
Baby it is cold out there.
When Basho and his friends showed up for a renga party, sometime towards the end of the year, they did so in the freezing rain wearing overcoats to protect the from the steady drizzle, (shigure).
Shigure, is that steady downfall that comes in late fall and early winter, the kind that soaks one to the bone.
Sarumino, or the Monkey’s Raincoat, is the fifth of the seven poetry anthologies compiled by Basho and his disciples. It was written in Ueno (his hometown), Kyoto and Omi, along Lake Biwa. Composed as a form of renga by Basho and his disciples and was published in 1691, three years before Basho’s death. Edited by Kyorai and Boncho.
初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也 hatsu shigure saru mo komino o hoshige nari
Source Notes.
Gabi Greve’s excellent website on all things Basho has multiple translations of the Japanese text.
So I went for a walk in the woods in December. And what did I get, for following such advice? No, not some peace of mind? But a cheek swelling ache on my frozen face from the wind that blows in December.
A Withering Wind, A Cheek swelling Ache, On a Strange man’s Face
Matsuo Basho, Autumn, 1690
I confess I have been outdone. A better translation can be found. From a collection of Winter haikus by Basho, Buson, and Issa, gathered up in a nice little package like a Christmas gift from Chris Kincaid. ‘Wintry Wind’ was his title. ‘Withering Wind’ is more along the lines of what Basho was thinking, but a month can make a difference. Check it out.
Yes, you noticed. This is an autumn haiku. Yes, the cold wind blows in Autumn, the withering kind that causes the leaves to fall. But you see, it is now December, and its worse, for the trees are bare, and it’s my face, and not that of the stranger I see, that is frozen.
Original Japanese
こがらしや 頬腫痛む 人の顔 kogarashi ya hoobare itamu hito no kao
Matsuo Basho, Autumn, Winter 1690
kogarashi (a leaf withering wind) ya (exclamation) hoobare (swollen cheeks) itamu (it hurts) hito no kao (a person’s face)
Bob Van Huss
In memory of my father-in-law, Robert (Bob) Van Huss, who liked to say, “It gets darn cold when the North Wind blows.” That wind is not a gentle kiss. With all its might, it socks you in the nose.
In May of 1689, Matsuo Basho made his well known five month long journey into Japan’s northern interior (Oku no Hosomichi). Before leaving he had expressed misgivings about such an adventure and even had forebodings of death. (“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”) But the trip came off without any major mishaps and Basho arrived near Kyoto, then. at year’s end, went to rest at Zeze 膳所, Ōtsu, on Lake Biwa, north of Kyoto.
Surprise, here was the crow, the symbol of death.
何にこの師走の市にゆく烏 nani ni kono shiwasu no ichi ni yuku karasu
what is this? December in the city market — a crow
Matsuo Basho, age 46, at Zeze 膳所, Ōtsu, on Lake Biwa, north of Kyoto, Winter, 1689 元禄2年
A similar theme is found in ancient Babylonian texts. See W. Somerset Maugham’s retelling in The Appointment in Samarra. Crows made their appearance in Noh plays Basho attended.
The crow can be ubiquitous in major cities if garbage is left out. But Japan’s Edo period had no such problem. There was pretty much no garbage because anything that could be got recycled. Old paper, food, even human excrement was picked up by collectors and sold or reused.
Notes on Translation
Nani ni kono, what is this, what!
Shiwasu, the name for the lunar month of December.
Yuku, going, coming to
Karasu, a crow. Crows abound in ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock art and Basho utilized the crow in several haiku. The crow can be a mark of rebirth, as it has historically cleaned up after battles consuming dead flesh. For the same reason, it can symbolize death. As anyone who has been in Bruges, Belgium knows, it can be a noisy messy bird in the mornings and evenings.
Be careful where you step and take your shoes off when you go home.
nani ni kono shiwasu no ichi ni yuku karasu
Image from the Edo Period collection of the Metropolitan Art, (public domain). Inrō with Crows on Tree in Moonlight (月下鴉蒔絵印籠)
“Saturday, you must be crazy to shop at Costco.” The text message reads. The store is packed, the lines are long, not everyone, but someone becomes impatient.
Two weeks before Christmas, Bashō no yōna is shopping at the local Costco. Standing patiently in line waiting for a piece of Cheddar cheese, he hears a father and mother with four young children in tow berating the bespectacled septuagenarian who is sweetly smiling but having a hard time cutting the cheese.
Needless to say, Bashō no yōna says,
‘Tis the season For short tempers, “Fa–la–la–la–la, la–la–la–la!”
Bashō no yōna, Holiday Season, 2023
Costco Hotdogs, fa-la-la-la-la
Did Bashō no yōna get his hot dog and drink for $1.50?
You bet ya, loaded with relish and mustard, but no onions. Is it cost cutting at Costco?
A hot dog with relish and mustard, What, no onions! — Cost cutting at Costco
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