A man of few words
Will learn
A lot more
Basho no yona, June 2023
Maybe it is not elegant. Doesn’t conform to rules, but then in poetry, as in life, rules are made to be broken.
Our guide along this journey into the wonders of haiku is Matsuo Basho, who said, don’t split the melon, don’t be like me.
Perhaps be like the frog, go jump in a pond.
Needs to simmer on the stove a little longer …
Otsu, Lake Biwa, Autumn 1690. Open the grass door to my hut, enjoy a simple vegetarian meal.
Open the door of my grass hut
Matsuo Basho, Otsu, Autumn 1690
Recognize flowering knotweed
and chili pepper
草の戸を知れや穂蓼に唐辛子
kusa no to o shire ya hotade ni togarashi
Basho often complained of stomach ailments. Therefore, he ate sparingly.
Notes. kusa no to (grass, of, door, i.e. door made of grass. A short hand was of saying the roof of the simple hut is made of thatched grass) o shire (know, see) ya (emphasis) hotade (flowering smartweed, or knotweed, the flower buds may be pink to red, ducks eat it. Compare the similar sounding hotate scallops, a fancier fare. Hotade has some medicinal value.) ni togarashi (red chili pepper).
It was a very good year, one might say for Matsuo Basho. He was happily living in Edo at his Basho hut, named for the banana tree outside. He is a respected haiku poet and a teacher of his style of poetry to a select group of disciples. When the spirit moves him, he makes an occasional foray along the the Tokaido and Nakasendo trails to and from Kyoto, and to his home in Ueno. He is also in the midst of planning a longer trip into Japan’s northern interior that would become famous as Oku no Hosomichi.
The Spring wind is howling
while I’m bursting with laughter
— wishing for flowers春風に吹き出し笑ふ花もがな
Matsuo Basho, Spring, 1668
haru kaze ni fukidashi warau hana mogana
Notes: haru (spring) kaze (wind) ni (on) fukidashi (today, this translates as speech bubble; fu 吹, to blow, to brag; kiき, tree; dashi appears to mean to put something out, like a kite or banner); warau (laugh or smile); hana (flower) mogana (wishing for)
Thoughts from the Midwest on the last day of March — the wind is still howling, driving me crazy.
The wind howls at the trees
Bashō no yōna, March 31, 2023
Will it stay,
Better yet, will it stop?
Something old, something borrowed:
March winds and April showers
An old standard
bring May flowers
and June bugs
Slightly altered, Nature becomes our nemesis:
March winds, April showers,
Bashō no yōna, March 2023
then heavy rains
and mosquitoes
He was not yet famous, he was not yet known as Matsuo Basho, but five years of living in Edo had brought him some recognition as a master of haiku.
in spring, its spring!
Matsuo Basho, 1680
each spring is great
and so on
於春々大哉春と云々
ah haru haru ōinaru kana haru to un nun
By 1679, Matsuo had taken the pen name Tosei (桃青), meaning “green peach.” His own poems were published in several anthologies; and twenty students who called him master published their own poems, Tōsei’s Collection of Twenty Poets (桃青門弟独吟二十歌仙). The year of 1680 was to be a year of great changes.
Haru, haru, how do you do?
Bashō no yōna, Spring 2023
The first dandelion is simple and bright
But what happens next?
In Kyoto and elsewhere in Japan, it is Spring again. The daffodils are in full bloom, waving at a poet trying to capture the moment in words. It is 1668, two years since the death of Todo Yoshitada, young Matsuo’s samurai master. Matsuo is not yet Basho. He is still Matsuo Kinsaku, age 24, living in Kyoto, wishing and hoping.
Spring
Matsuo Kinsaku (Basho) Spring, 1668
flowers laughing in the wind
wishing and hoping
春風に吹き出し笑ふ花もがな
haru kaze ni fukidashi warau hana mogana
Mogana — “wouldn’t it be nice if, if only, here’s hoping, wishing, wishing and hoping” are some of the meanings of mogana — the poet’s hope or desire for a beautiful spring.
Since Burt Bacharach died this year at the age of 93, I think it appropriate to mention his song, Wishin’ and Hopin’, first released in 1962. There are at least two great renditions, in 1962 by Dionne Warwick, the other by Dusty Springfield in 1964. Interestingly, Dusty’s Italian recording became “Stupido, Stupido.” It seems”desiderare e sperare” didn’t resonate well with the amorous Italians.
Wishin’ and hopin’
RIP, Burt Bacharach, 1928-2023
— to find love, hold him
then kisses will start
Meanwhile in the world, King Charles II was back on the throne in England. France’s King Louis XIV and Spain’s King Charles II were fighting over the Netherlands. Japan was at peace under the rule of Tokugawa Ietsuna.
haru kaze ni (in a Spring wind or breeze) fukidashi warau (blowing and laughing) hana (flowers) mogana (indicates hope or desire, i.e. Basho wishes the flowers were laughing in the wind).
Haru kaze 春風 — A Spring breeze is associated with many things including happiness and joy, a smiling face.
Fuki 吹き, blowing or boasting; dashi 出しbroth. I inagine flowers waving in the breeze to and fro like a bubbling broth.
Matsuo Basho’s thoughts on writing poetry were simple:
松の事は松に習へ、竹の事は竹に習へ
Matsu no koto wa matsu ni narae, take no koto wa take ni narae
a pine trees as a thing, be a pine tree,
for bamboo as a thing,
be bamboo
At the same time, Basho warned his students:
我に似るなふたつに割れし真桑瓜
ware ni niru na futatsu ni ware shi makuwauriDon’t mirror me
like two halves
of a melon.
Basho’s student, Doho, gave us this Tao-like thought:
造花にしたがい、造花にかへれとなり
zoka ni shitagai, zoka ni kaere to nari!to make a flower, submit and obey,
from Doho’s “San-Zoshi,” explaining Basho’s poetical teachings
to make a flower
go back and become!
This fits in nicely with advice I was once given on public speaking
When talking to an audience
Pause, then
Speak from the heart
This did not always work. For fear always lurks nearby. In case of panic, the advice is “curl your toes” this distracts and unfreezes your mind. It works.
Becoming Basho was a long process. He was for a long time, Tosei, an unripe peach. A move to Edo, a trip across the Sumida River to Fukagawa, a simple cottage, cold nights, loneliness, a gift of a banana plant, in time, a basho tree weathering the storms.
Matsu, a pine tree. There is a well known haiku, that goes Matsushima, Matsushima, Matsushima, Ah! This was, supposedly, Matsuo Basho’s exclamation on arriving at Matsushima, considered to be one of Japan’s most beautiful spots. (Basho visited here on the Oku no Hosomichi, the Journey to the Northern Interior.)
koto, thing.
zoka 造花, make a flower; shitagai, submit, obey.
kaere, go back, return; nari, to be, become: go back and become
ware, me; niru, resemble, look like, mirror
futatsu, two
makuwauri, oriental melon
A flash of lightning in a September cloud, a Zen reflection on the impermanence of life, but to those don’t know, a precious thing to behold.
A flash of lightning
Matsuo Basho, 1690
Yet unenlightened,
How noble!
稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ
inazuma ni / satoranu hito no / tattosa yo
Mid-September, 2022, crossing Kansas along US 160, coming home from Las Vegas, New Mexico. In the Gypsum Hills between Meade and Medicine Lodge, the route featured flat mesas, long canyons and arroyos, red rolling hills, and vast empty stretches with no living beings.
As day turned to evening, and evening to darkness, my wife and I were entertained by a show of lightning to the north.
“Beautiful,” said my wife.
Inazuma (稲妻, a flash of lightning) ni (with); satora (さとら, enlightened, understanding, one realizes) nu (ぬ, not) hito (人, people, one person) no (の, possessive); tattosa (貴さ, noble and precious).
Yo (よ, yo, indicating certainty).
Matsuo Basho in 1690, at the age of 47 with but three years to live. He had completed his journey of northern Japan, Oku no Hosomichi — How noble and precious, he who doesn’t think, “life is fleeting,” when seeing a flash of lightning.
Our existence in this fleeting world:
Diamond Sutra, Chap. 32
A drop of dew in the morning, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, a dream…
Thus spoke Buddha.
One can travel by train today from Tokyo to Yamadera in less than five hours.
In 1689, Matsuo Basho made the journey by foot in four or five months, give or take a day or a week. Basho left behind the comforts of his thatched cottage in Fukagawa, his friends, and his students for an uncertain journey with his companion Sora. They arrived in Yamadera in late August. There, Basho and Sora climb the rocky steps to the mountain temple called Yamadera (山寺, lit. “Mountain Temple”), shedding each step of the way their human worries and cares, until even the wind had ceased and all was silent.
Beholding the beauty of the scene, all Basho heard was the sound of the cicada.
ah, the silence
sinking into the rocks
the voice of the cicada
閑かさや
岩にしみ入る
蝉の声
shizukasa ya
iwa ni shimi-iru
semi no koe
Basho’s haiku is inspired by my own experience with cicadas in Kansas and elsewhere. It is a common experience shared by anyone who has heard the incessant high pitched cry. What they are saying and to whom is a mystery. Perhaps, spending 16 out of 17 years underground, they are happy to be set free, learning too soon that it is time to die.
Perhaps, I wonder is it the heat?
ah, in the heat of August,
from each and every tree
comes the cry the cicada
Shizukasa could also be “such silence”, the feeling of awe that comes across the traveler when the wind dies completely and one is left alone with the beauty of Nature.
Shimi-iru is literally “penetrating,” giving one the sense the cicadas have burrowed into the rocks to escape the heat. “Sinking” is more sublime, and suggestive of a Buddhist stage of meditation.
Semi no koe, at its simplest, is the voice of the cicada, but that doesn’t stop translators from adding a little spice with verbs like “shrill of the cicada” or “cry of the cicada”.
Matsuo Basho (松尾 芭蕉) lived in the later half of the 17th century when Japan was isolated from Western culture and there was, of course, no Halloween, no Trick or Treat, no masked children laughing and singing, “Smell my feet, Give me something good to eat.” Masks were however used in the ceremonies of Shinto religion (Tengu, 天狗), the plays of Noh theater, and as part of the Samurai military costume.
Had he worn one, surely a banana , his self-given moniker, the very meaning of Basho (芭 蕉) and the plant which grew over his hut on the outskirts of Edo. Otherwise, a Noh mask, for Basho loved to attend the plays Lastly as an old and aged frog about to make a splash, for that was the poem that made him famous.
Old pond, frog jumping into water, sound
Furuike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto
ふるいけやかわずとびこむみずのおと
Water makes many sounds, it ripples on the rocks, splatters as rain falling upon the roof, as the roar of the ocean waves, even the gurgle of water in a drain. But the very best has to be surprise when a frog disturbs the stillness of a pond and we hear kerplop!
1694, Genroku 7, on the 21st day of the ninth lunar month
An Autumn evening (sigh)
Breaking down
How will it end – (an angry) talk?
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Translators, like Nick Carraway’s character in The Great Gatsby, never totally agreeing, trying to make sense of Matsuo Basho’s haiku. This however provides hours of fun and never-ending chatter, for when it comes to the sense of a poem, in Zen, there is no right or wrong.
How will it end – In pleasant chat or angry talk?
In the autumn night,
Breaking into
A pleasant chat
Matsuo Basho’s Autumn haiku poems
this autumn night
brought to naught
by our storytelling
Autumn’s night
Struck and shattered
By a genial conversation
Basho’s Haiku by Jeroen van Zanten
Context provides clarity.
1694 – Basho is traveling again for the last time, going from the house of one friend to another. In the year 1694 (Genroku 7, on the 21st day of the ninth lunar month), shortly before his death, he arrives at the home of Shioe Shayo in Osaka. Old friends gathering, reciting haiku, and talking of the olden days.
One month later, on the 12th day of the tenth lunar month, he peacefully passed away.
秋の夜を 打ち崩したる 咄かな
Aki no yo wo/ Uchikuzushitaru/ Hanashi kana
Line one. 秋の夜 を Akinoyo wo, An Autumn night. The final character を imparts the idea of a sigh or emphasis.
Line two. 打ち崩したる Uchikuzushitaru, most translation agree that this conveys the meaning “breaking down into”. I imagine an evening that began as a Renga party where a group of poets each contributed a verse under the direction of a renga master, Matuso Basho. Each verse a haiku that contained three lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Eventually all games come to an end, breaking down into congenial chatter and sometimes anger.
Line three. 咄かな Hanashi kana. Basho leaves us with a bit of a mystery. After three centuries, Hanashi comes down to us as a talk, a story and a chat. But the character 咄 when repeated becomes a loud voice (onomatopoeia), especially in an angry way; like tut-tut or tsk-tsk. The final two characters かな kana express wonder.
If the evening ended in anger and disagreement, I imagine Basho sitting there, a bit groggy from the wine, shaking his head, sadly thinking, this is how it ends. Thankfully, I am in the minority on this point of view. A month later, on his death bed, Basho is pictured, at peace, surrounded by friends.
matsuo-basho-haiku 