Month: February 2025

Advice on writing

coffee cup, glasses, and calendar

A haiku worth reading —
begins in delight
and ends in wisdom
— Bashō no yōna, thoughts on Robert Frost

Adapting Robert Frost’s advice on writing poetry.


“Surprise,”
says the frog to the pond,
“Splash,” it responds.
— thoughts on Basho’s most famous haiku

On a child helping his mother baking a cake.

After baking a cake,
a smile
says it all

Before the cake is baked, taking a spatula to the bowl of leftover frosting. That smudge of chocolate at the corner of the mouth of a child, a mother’s delight.

Eighth Day Books

On a cold windy day in February a bookstore is a good place to be. Far from the Madding Crowds.

Surrounded by books

I’ll never read

A terrible waste?

.

Words to live by

The power of words

Less said is well said

.

The Trojan War

Cherchez la femme

Helen

From the Power of Words by Simone Weil. The absurdity is that we blame anyone but ourselves. Making conflict our passion, making war, our goal.

When it comes to computers

Words are empty

Of feeling

.

No more, no less

Words have the meanings

We give them

.

A world

Without words

How Dao

.

But utterly boring for words get us going, for good or for bad, but my God, we’re moving. Or sitting and reading.

Then came the snow, falling gently at first, then blindingly fast, telling me it is time to go.

Simone Weil (1909-1943), one who died caring too much.

Eighth Day Books in Wichita, Kansas on Douglas Avenue, east of Downtown, west of Uptown.

The sound of ice breaking

Sounds of Nature

We have heard Matsuo Basho repeatedly speak of Nature talking. Most famously in the haiku about the frog, the pond, and splash, kerplunk. Basho has also spoken of rain dripping, sleet falling, and rice being tossed in a basket.

The sounds of Nature are familiar to us all.

Here is one we have all encountered in winter:

Baby steps on thin ice,
Ice cracking,
Breaking the silence
— Bashō no yōna, February 2025

The sound of ice breaking a bottle. Basho did, for a period, study Buddhism. On cold, frigid night in 1693, alone at home, ice shattered a bottle. Perhaps, nezame kana was his “Awakening and Enlightenment.”

Or maybe, it simply disturbed his sleep.

a bottle of water is broken,
a cold icy night,
— an awakening!
瓶割るる / 夜の氷の / 寝覚め哉
kamewa ruru / yoru no koori no / nezame kana
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1693

This haiku is given as the sixth year of Genroku, 1693. If so, it was Basho’s last winter in Edo, and Basho’s last winter. He died in November of 1694.