Thoughts on James Baldwin

Thoughts on James Baldwin’s letter to his nephew James (1962).

I have begun this thought five times,
This is the sixth and last,
Or is it?

Or is it? — Isn’t rewriting what is becoming? Matsuo Basho wasn’t born until he left home, quit as a servant, became a student in Kyoto, moved to Edo, and struck out across the Sumida River, writing, rewriting, finally becoming Basho.

One suspects in reading James Baldwin there is a great mixture of emotion, of hate, and disappointment, frustration at life, but buried at the bottom of this Pandora’s Box, is the hope of a better future. James, I hope, we have proven you right. I hope we are still trying.

Remembering most of mankind
Is not all mankind,
Is hope
.
What has been beaten into me
is to be tough and philosophical
Not bitter
.
Take no one’s word as the Word,
Including mine
Experience teaches
.
I left and came back
Because this is our home
Yours and mine

As bad as America was for James Baldwin (1924-1987), he realized that it had, for good and bad, was his home. Twenty six years in France gave him a good seat in the balcony to observe humankind. But back in America, he had family and friends. And though much of mankind was cruel, he had work to be done to make it better.

If one reads his writing, one can break it down, as I have attempted to do, into haiku.

Golden

Mornings in Golden, Colorado in June, 2925. Far from the madding crowds and the news.

Sitting on the porch

Musing while sipping coffee

Time seemingly stops

Cottonwood leaves shake

Like the silver tongue gossip

Whispering at dawn

The Gold is long gone

The wind the pine and the hills

Are all that remain

Golden, Colorado, June 2025

Far from the madding crowds, further still from the noise in the news that war is all that men know,

the hills repose beneath a pale blue sky while clouds move on,

Clear Creek flows on like a cool memory of times long forgotten,

and the cottonwoods whisper where the mines once churned out silver and gold.

Time drifts on,

not quite paradise, but close

To Heaven on Earth

each time the wind blows

Matsuo Basho is, for much of the time, an observer of nature. It is summer, we may assume, and the poet is in his garden tending his flowers and enjoying the butterflies. Perhaps, he is thinking of Zhuangzi’s butterfly, and dreaming he too is a butterfly. But along comes a gust of wind, and the butterfly flees for the protection of the willow tree.

each time the wind blows,
a butterfly flees my garden,
for a willow tree
— Matsuo Basho, Summer, year unknown

Japanese

吹くたびに	fuku tabi ni	each time the wind blows
蝶のゐなほる	chô no inaoru,	a butterfly leaves my garden
柳かな	yanagi kana	for a willow tree

蝶のゐなほる, also, Chō no wi na horu; horu (abandons, leaves). Compare cho no niwa 蝶の庭, butterfly garden.

One can read more into this haiku. Sometimes a butterfly is an omen good luck. Sometimes it is a symbol of a dead person’s soul, more often it is simply a thing of joy, a fleeting moment of pleasure.

What is your take?

Lightening and Thunder

Matsuo Basho wrote this haiku in the summer of the 7th year of the Genroku era. It is 1694, the year Basho’s life would come to an end.

A spark of lightning
in my hands in the darkness
— this paper candle
.
稲妻を . 手にとる闇の . 紙燭哉
inazuma o . te ni toru yami no . shisoku kana
— Matsuo Basho, June (?), 1694

It was 1694, the last year of Matsuo Basho’s life. I suppose without knowing for sure, it was summer and raining. Matsuo Basho sat up late, writing by the light of a lamp. Perhaps, the lamp light went out, then lightning, then Basho lit a paper candle to find his way in the darkness.

For me, it is in the middle of June, early morning and raining. My dog Lucy hides in a corner in the closet, afraid of the thunder and lightning. Why, I wonder?

Gentle Reader:

You may disagree with my translation. You may draw other conclusions. This is reasonable for haiku are meant to be personal. Like the way my dog Lucy reacts to the lightning and thunder.

Inazuma (稲妻) translates to “lightning,” or “flash of lightning,” that is, the cosmic spark of divinity that lights up the sky at night. As a metaphor, it symbolizes the ability to cut through ignorance and delusion, the way a lightning bolt illuminates the darkness. Buddhism expresses the thought as a transitory moment. I see, but only for a moment.

Then comes the phrase te ni toru yami no (手にとる闇の) which means “take the darkness in your hands.” This is followed by shisoku kana (紙燭哉), meaning a small paper candle or torch. Lacking matches, the Japanese of Basho’s time, lit these paper candles from another source then carried them about to either light the way or illuminate a lamp.

As an aside, let me quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” So, dear friend, be the light and not the darkness.

Washing and Drying

When washing and drying are fun —

The mind churns
Jumbled, a washer mid-cycle
A mess
.
The mind tosses,
A dryer, half cycle,
Still wet
Bashō no yōna, with a little help from his daughter, November, 2024

A metaphor for how the mind works. About an idea half formed, about to become an epiphany. Eureka!

An idea half-formed,
About to become an Epiphany,
— Eureka!
Bashō no yōna, with a little help from his daughter, November, 2024

Thoughts on Washing and Drying

Matsuo Basho had no washer or dryer, just the river or the creek, just the branch and the wind. That way he was one with Nature. Are we losing it?

Roses

Specifically, the 山吹き yamabuki, a yellow flowering rose shrub that grows in thickets on a mountain slopes.

Matsuo Basho’s rose haiku (three versions) on a yellow rose written one year before his death. This is one of those times one says, “You had to be there.” One can not feel the mist on one’s face, see the petals lying scattered in the grass on the ground, or hear the roar of the waterfall. One can’t compete with Mother Nature.

Petals falling and scattering
From a yellow rose
To the noise of a waterfall

Yellow petals of a rose
tumbling to the thunder
of a waterfall

Petal by petal
A Yellow Rose is falling
To the sound of the waterfall

ほろほろと山吹ちるか瀧の音
Horo horo to yamabuki chiru ka taki no oto
Matsuo Basho, 1693

Red Roses

Juliet says,
“A rose by any other name
would smell as sweet.”
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Of course one is aware that a haiku takes a particular form of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, whose goal is to evoke an image of the natural world that transcends a purely objective view. This does not prevent us from looking at other forms of literature as variations on the haiku. Here, for example is a truncated version of Victor Hugo’s poem, La tomb dit a la rose, a conversation between the grave and a rose.

The Grave says to the Rose
The grave to the rose:
– Why cry at dawn
Flower of love?
.
The rose to the grave:
What do you do with what falls
Into this bottomless abyss?
.
The rose: Dark crypt,
These tears are shed in the shadows
A perfume of amber and honey.
.
The grave: Wistful flower,
Each soul I take I make
— a heavenly angel!
— Victor Hugo, Poems, XXXI, 1888

Hair

The bald man’s lament:

Here no hair,
There no hair,
Hair today, Gone tomorrow
— Basho no Yona, Summer, 2024

Matsuo Basho gave us a more enduring image of a woman cooking dumplings while managing a loose strand of hair.

Holding a dumpling
in one hand, she tucks
her hair behind her ear

.

Holding a dumpling in one hand,
The other hand, brushing back
A lock of her hair

粽ゆう . 片手にはさむ . 額髪
Chimaki yuu . katate ni hasamu . hitaigami
–Matsuo Basho, May 5, 1691

Chimaki (rice dumpling) yuu (in the act of making) katate (with one hand) ni (in) hasamu (holding) hitaigami (hair on the forehead)

Where is Basho?

A man’s got to eat.

Chimaki, steamed dumplings, wrapped with leaves of bamboo, banana, etc., made of glutinous (sticky) rice and various fillers.

How do you like your dumplings? Add a filler of meat or vegetables, and sprinkle with a special sauce.

From spring to summer in 1690, Bashō was living in quiet retirement at a place called Genju-an (the Phantom Dwelling). It had been an abandoned hut beside Lake Biwa. What better place for one tired of travel, tired of guests, growing weary of the world.

Basho speaks:

“Ten years ago, I gave up city life, now I’m approaching fifty, like a bagworm without its bag, a snail without its shell. (On my recent travels,) the hot sun of Kisakata in Ou tanned and scorched my face. I’ve bruised my heels on the rough beaches of the northern sea where tall dunes make walking so hard. And now this year, I am drifting here by the waves, on the shores of Lake Biwa.”

Source. WKD

粽ゆう . 片手にはさむ . 額髪
Chimaki yuu . katate ni hasamu . hitaigami

Forms

An old pond
A frog jumps in
The sound of water
古池や蛙飛び込む水の音
Furu ike ya, kawazu tobikomu, mizu no oto

Let us speak of forms and shapes, of the fluidity of life, of being and being gone. Of warm summer days, of turtles and frogs, of walks with the dogs down by the creek…

Matsuo Basho’s famous frog haiku has been translated ten thousand times (万 wàn, also meaning “many” or, so many, one looses count). The words have been parsed, the meaning interpreted a thousand ways (千 sen, also meaning many in countless ways). Its parts dissected like that poor old frog in a high school biology class.

I like to go for walks with my two small dogs to Pawnee Prairie Park in Wichita, Kansas. There is a spot where we round the corner and approach the creek high up on the bank. Most days, I hear the plop of the turtle as it slips off a log into the water. I try to be silent, but somehow the turtle knows I am coming.

Am I hearing the sound of the creek or the turtle? Am I witnessing a magical change of form, the fluidity of turtle and the water?

In one sense Basho gives voice to the old pond that is otherwise silent. Is the pond offended by the interfering frog? Or does it welcome the abrupt change to an otherwise dull existence? One wonders.

Other philosophical questions to ponder:

One wonders, if a banana,
is still a banana,
when it is eaten?

If not,
when does it cease to be a banana
and become me?
— Bashō no yōna

Along the same lines:

Are the bricks in a building
One and the same
If the building falls down?
— Bashō no yōna

These amusing musings all deal with Plato’s Theory of Forms. The physical world we soon learn is not the ultimate reality, as Basho discovered at the Old Pond.