Category: Uncategorized

Sake Anyone?

New Year’s Eve,
from dusk til dawn,
Sake anyone?
— Bashō no yōna, 2025

Eat drink and be merry, but there is hell to pay for a little buzz.

Like floating flowers
My sake is white,
My rice is black
花にうき世我が酒白く飯黒し
hana ni ukiyo waga sake shiroku meshi kuroshi
.
Cherry blossoms falling
Sneaking sips of sake
Behind a fan
扇にて酒くむ陰や散る桜
ōgi nite sake kumu kage ya chiru sakura
.
After drinking the sake
The bottle becomes
A flower vase
呑明て花生となる二升樽
nomi akete hana-ike ni sen nishoodaru
.
May swallows dance
but let not mud drop
in my sake cup
盃に泥な落しそ舞ふ燕
盃に泥な落しそ 村ツバメ
sakazuki ni doro na otoshi so muratsubame
.
when I drink sake
no longer can I sleep
this snowy night
酒飲めばいとど寝られぬ夜の雪
sake nomeba itodo nerarenu yoru no yuki
— Matsuo Basho, sake haiku

I confess to liking the last haiku the best. Or maybe it is just that it resonates with me.

The more we drink, the less we sleep
nomeba itodo nerarenu

sake, the more one drinks, the less one sleeps

Somebody farted

Variations on a fart by a smart feller. things not said in polite company.

Somebody farted,

Was it wind or a whisper?

Friends soon departed

.

Somebody farted

Hearing a sigh feeling a breeze ,

The room held its breath

.

Somebody farted

A cloud of mystery lingered

As I departed

.

Matsuo Basho ate radishes both because they were plentiful and because he had stomach problems for most of his life. No doubt he passed gas in polite company, but it was never mentioned.

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 nieach time the wind blows
蝶のゐなほる chô no inaoru,a butterfly leaves my garden
柳かなyanagi kanafor 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?

Do Butterflies Dream?

You were a butterfly,
And I Zhuangzi,
— In my dream-like state

君や蝶我や荘子が夢心
kimi ya chō ware ya Sōji ga yume-gokoro
— Matsuo Basho

[literal translation. kimi (you) ya (exclamation, wonder) chō (butterfly) ware (I or we) ya Sōji (Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, Japanese Soichi) ga (still) yume-gokoro (dreamy-state, lit., in the heart of one’s dream)]

The Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi (4th c. BC, Japanese Soichi) once dreamed he was a butterfly, flitting and fluttering around, happy as could be. Then he awoke, but was he Zhuangzi and was it still a dream.

Men think. Men dream. Dogs think and dream. Butterflies go about their work happy as can be. But butterflies don’t sleep they say, but do they daydream?

Do butterflies dream,
Of kale
in Spring?
— Bashō no yōna

Matsuo Basho does not strike me as much of a gardener. The plant he is most associated with is the banana (basho), but even this was the housewarming gift of a friend. Last fall I planted kale. By May it rises on tall stalks with tiny yellow flowers surrounded by white butterflies in the morning.

flowering kale

Light the Fire

To see in the dark

One only has to

Turn on the light

.

If it were only that easy, but it’s not, or maybe I’m trying too hard to find the switch.

.

I’d light the fire

And you’d place the flowers

In the vase and add water

— Crosby Stills Nash Young

.

The afternoon sun

A tall snowman holding a broom,

Becoming nothing

.

Random thoughts

Reading Alan Watts

Waiting for the sun to rise

Jasmine

The smell of jasmine

So distinctly sweet,

To man and moth, one wonders?

Naxos, Greece

The Greek islands are dry and arid. But from Mykonos to Paris to Naxos the landscape became progressively greener. Although the islands are surrounded by the Aegean Sea, it rarely rains in Summer and Autumn.

It was in mid-October, only on Naxos, that the moths, the bees, and I came across the delicate Jasmine, whose Persian name, Yasmin, means Gift of God.

Far away, one hears the frightful call of all our war. One wonders.