The sound of ice breaking

rider on horseback in the snow, hiroshige

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.

Winter Cat

Miss Kitty

I have a calico cat who goes out each morning unless there’s snow. When she wants to come in she politely paws at the door. I wish she’d learn to knock. I call her Miss Kitty, my wife calls her Callie. Together, when it’s time to come in. we both yell, “Kitty, Kitty!”

Winter Cat
wants in
not out
.
winter kitty cats,
you know,
don’t know it’s snow
.
winter cats
like to hide
in dresser drawers
.
should winter kittens
wear mittens
to keep their paws warm?

One week later, Winter kitty is stir crazy …

Winter kitty finally went out
Truth be told
It’s still damn cold



The sound of tossing rice

Winter overlooks
this home, for the tossing of rice
is like the sound of sleet

冬知らぬ宿や籾摺る音霰
fuyu shiranu / yado ya momi suru / oto arare

— In the first year of the Tei-Kyō era (1684), Matsuo Basho, age 41.

Let’s trick Mother Nature by tossing rice in a basket while cold sleet pounds the roof.

Preparing rice by tossing it in a basket to remove the husks is a long forgotten task to the modern family. Rice comes in bags ready to cook. In Basho’s time, removing the chaff from the grain would precede tossing the rice in the boiling water. Add to this soothing sound, the happy chatter of the family inside a warm home, and the sound of the cold snow or sleet falling outside, and you have the makings of a warm winter haiku.

Fuyu shiranu — one, winter doesn’t know; winter passes by; three, winter misses; four, invisible to winter. Basho wrote this poem during his journey he called “Nozarashi Kiko.” He was on his way to the Nagao shrine in Katsuragi in Nara, when he stopped at the home of a wealthy family.

rice being tossed in a basket like the sound of hail

It is beginning to snow

It is beginning to snow. How delightful, unless you are a young monk, out on the road, standing in the snow, begging for a coat. It was the fourth year of the Genroku (1691-92), Basho was returning to Edo, saddened, I suspect, for he was not feeling well. Basho was 47 turning 48, and it was beginning to snow.

It is beginning to snow
and the saintly young monk
is the color of his wooden backpack

初雪や .　聖小僧が .　笈の色
Hatsu-yuki ya . Hijiri-kozo ga . Oi no iro
— Matsuo Basho, Winter 1691-92

The Backpack Color
White or red. Two theories on the backpack color. One, the backpack was white from the snow, and the monk was getting pale. Two, the backpack was red (as I have seen online) and the monk’s face was red from the bitter cold.

Kōya Hijiri (高野聖), young monks from Mount Kōya, south of Osaka, who were sent out to preach Buddhism with nothing more than a wooden backpack and bowl to beg for food.

man on horseback in snow, Hiroshige, source Wikipedia

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

Brrr, it’s Cold

Winter, Genroku 5, 1693
Matsuo Basho, age 49 years.

At the fishmonger’s shop, is Matsuo Basho having a premonition of death?

塩鯛の歯 . ぐきも寒し . 魚の店
Shio tai no . haguki mo samushi . uo no tana

Salted Sea-bream,
Baring their teeth, lie chilly,
At the fish shop
— Matsuo Bashō, 松尾芭蕉

At the Fish Shop

At open air markets around the world, it is customary for fishmongers to display their fish outdoors on ice. In winter, when it is cold, ice is not needed.

Dante in his masterpiece, the Inferno, reserved the the Ninth and last Ring of Hell for cold hearted traitors. This ring contained a frozen lake called Cocytus. And at the very center of which lay Satan, up to his waist in ice, blue and menacing, baring his teeth, no doubt.

If Basho was having a premonition of death, it was fairly accurate. He met his end in Osaka, dying in 1694, at the relatively young age of 50.

If one is looking for a literary allusion, then one should read death’s tale as told in “An Appointment in Samarra.” (a poem and a book). Meeting death in the marketplace one grabs his horse and rushes to a distant city, only to meet death.

Haguki – literally “gums”; samushi, “cold”. Anyone who has seen Sea Bream at a fishmonger’s shop will readily see what Basho meant.

塩鯛の歯 . ぐきも寒し . 魚の店
Shio tai no . haguki mo samushi . uo no tana
Salted Sea Bream baring their teeth at the fish market

Haiku in Latin

rider on horseback in the snow, hiroshige

There is no reason, one supposes, Haiku can’t be written in Latin. Is there a reason why it should? Why it shouldn’t?

Haiku in Latin,
Is there a reason,
Why it should?

Haiku latine scripta,
Estne causa,
Quidni debet?

Caeli sereni,
Aqua lucet in rivo,
Vox avium cantat.


Serene skies,
Sunlight shimmering in the stream,
The sound of birds singing.

This is not the case today, as it is snowing cats and dogs, a metaphor that makes no sense. It isn’t supposed to for to snow cats and dogs would be very unusual which is what the weather is.

Nix cadens durior,
Arbor ramis frangentibus,
… Tum silentium.

Snow falling hard,
Tree branches breaking,
… Total silence.

As for the white winter weather, Matsuo Basho had this to say:

Wintry weather,
When the world is one color,
One hears the sound of wind.

冬枯れや世は一色に風の音
Fuyu gare ya yo wa hito iro isshoku ni kaze no oto
— Matsuo Basho,

Fuyugare ya yo wa hito iro isshoku ni kaze no oto