06 Micro Poems:

… a couple today…

Upon hearing about my mother in law’s car accident…

Unintended acceleration– what consequences!

… and…

In an antique shop window– goddess Kali for sale.

02 Daily Read:

Haiku by Issa…

… one about a staring contest with a very large frog… this is a famous one i think… i look up the cultural significance of frogs and find an article on the usc.edu website that has this to say about frogs in Japanese culture…

In Japan, the frog is usually seen as a symbol of good fortune associated with magical powers. Because the Japanese word for frog is “kaeru”, which is pronounced in the same way as “return”, travelers carry a small frog amulet with the intent of returning safely home.¹

… another article on frog symbolism confirms the above and adds the moon as an association with frogs, the three legged frog and the moon, the three phases of the moon…

… the frog is associated with rainfall and good harvests, and is a symbol of spring, the seasonal reference in the poem… that the artist has a staring contest with the frog presents a kind of stand off moment… is it reluctance to pursue a spiritual journey?… is it a latter stage in life confronting youth?…

… another poem about being a devout Buddhist while killing mosquitos… Buddhism argues respect to all creatures, even the annoying ones… some sects can barely walk through the landscape for fear of killing something unwittingly… yet, there are annoying creatures that can actually make us sick… we kill them regardless of our devotions… mosquitos are a spring-summer reference… the poem perhaps about spiritual journeys having difficulties…

… here is an article about insects and Japanese culture that is more general in nature…

11 Micro Poems:

…several in one post…

_ Returning to normal– one eye on the variants._

_ Squashing ants in the kitchen– doesn’t bode well for my karma._

_ Restless dog– is it really only 3 AM?_

_ To escape the rain– I buy coffee I don’t want._

… i think that’s it for today…

03 The Daily Read, Part II:

The Haiku of Issa…

… today’s haikus are a little enigmatic…

… one about a moth finding brightness in the chamber of a woman, and being burnt to a crisp… the woman’s chamber is significant and brings the poet directly into the action… there is no need to describe the setting as a woman’s chamber unless there is an intended double meaning, that the poet is drawn to the flame of the woman and metaphorically burnt to a crisp for his labors… it does not sound as though his visit was entirely satisfactory… i look up moths as cultural symbols and find nothing substantial…

… another about scarecrows all being crooked… i look up the cultural significance of scarecrows in Japan and there is some… it is a folk deity, known as Kuebiko, representing folk wisdom, knowledge and agriculture¹… Issa notes that he doesn’t know about the people in the town but the scarecrows are crooked… is this meant in a corruption kind of way?… or just a state of general disorderliness represented by lack of attention to their scarecrows, which are deities after all… or that one can expect problems with wisdom, knowledge and agriculture from the town he is entering… he identifies the town as his home town, so maybe it is about memories and formative experience… is he talking about himself more than the town?…

… another about plum trees blooming in January in other provinces… this is odd, plum trees do bloom from January into February and are considered harbingers of spring… so Issa is saying they bloom in other provinces but not where he is… since he does not identify the province he is in, i assume it is metaphorical, something about old age perhaps?… reaching the place of having little life left to offer?… an article in Wikipedia² confirms the plum blossom as a symbol of spring and is believed to be a protective charm against evil… so the lack of blossoms is likely about old age and or lack of protection against evil… both?…

02 The Daily Read:

… yesterday i found and downloaded a book on animals in Issa’s poetry… i was expecting a book about animals as symbols of the culture… it turned out to be a book about animal ethics and what Issa has to teach us about treatment of animals… i believe that animals feel and think more than commonly given credit for, that one should always handle them with respect… i regret killing ants on the kitchen counter… i cause to be killed, or in some cases, kill animals to eat… so i am not that interested in the idea that we should never kill animals, that it is unethical to do so…

… Issa was a Buddhist¹, and worried about the karma of killing insects, yet he did kill insects… my perception is that Buddhism respects all life…

… nature is constructed such that one animal is food for another… it’s a cycle of life… humans perhaps have reached the place where they think about the consequences of their actions and are capable of offering respect to animals, even as they kill them… Native Americans are thought by many to have had this down… one takes only what one needs to survive… one takes with honor and respect… one gives thanks for what one is able to take… this is an ethics of resource treatment i can get behind… i am mindful of the book Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer in which the Native American attitude towards natural resources is laid out in full…

05 Micro Poem:

_ Folding toilet paper– the way my father taught me._

… this one came as a bit of a surprise to me… it’s about my father who has recently been accepted into hospice care which generally means he is believed to have six months or less to live…

… to say that my father and i have a difficult relationship is an understatement, so it comes as a surprise to me that i would write a poem centered on this small thing that is a little over the border to positive nostalgia…

… as for folding toilet paper, my father is a West Point graduate, neatness, precision, discipline and economy are important to him… yeah, i resemble that in perhaps a less obsessive way…

02 The Daily Read:

The Essential Haiku, edited by Robert Hass, translations by Hass and others…

… Issa…

… todays set of poems are not as remarkable to me as yesterday’s, or are they?… they seem more pedestrian, telling flies to relax and make love (the idea is kind of gross), since the poet is going out (and therefor does not have to be annoyed by the flies, their soul (i reread and think to correct the spelling and then decide the current spelling has more poetic depth) purpose as far as most humans are concerned)…

… another poem about a counting the flea bites on her baby as she nurses them…

… a poem about paying a dime to look through a telescope, were telescopes even around in Issa’s time?… yes, invented more than 150 years before his birth… and wouldn’t ten cents have been rather dear for a look through a telescope at the time?… i wonder if Hass has updated the pricing to make the poem more relatable?… or course today it would be a dollar…

… another poem about a snail being stripped to the waist in the moonlight… as with any animal in Haiku, one has to look up it’s possible cultural significance… snails are a symbol of fertility, tolerance and perseverance… also of duality because of their hermaphrodite nature¹… would this have been known in Issa’s time?…

… after some searching, an article that may explain the stripped to the waist reference in the snail Haiku… possibly referring to Saze Oni, a mythical snail creature that could shape shift into a beautiful woman… they bedeviled sailors much like the Sirens of Greek mythology²… i don’t know if this has anything to do with the snail poem…

… it is interesting that the reading of a small number of Haiku can generate so much additional reading as i look to see if their are meanings and allusions hidden from me, a Japanese culture outsider… much of the time there is…

03 Micro Poem:

_ Folding toilet paper– the way my father taught me._

02 The Daily Read:

Issa haiku…

… a remarkable set of poems this morning, of the six i read, all six stand out for one reason or another…

… the first pictures a dry river bed seen by the light of a lightning strike… a river bed that is about to flow with water again… a creative mind about to be released into creating by a powerful experience… a poem about summer rains?… where i live, rivers are more likely to be dry in the summer… thunderstorms and heavy downpours are more likely then too… there is also the threat of flash flooding… to much water in too little time…

… the second begs a flea not to jump, as the river is where it will likely land… i suppose it is very Buddhist to wish continued health and well being on even a lowly “nuisance” creature… i would have flicked it to it’s drowning death… of course, the poem might also be about undertaking challenges that are too big, perhaps the flea is the novice, beginner mind, that wishes to forge ahead too quickly and will be drowned if it does?…

… the third talks about how being in this world is like walking on the roof of hell, distracted by the lovely yellow flowers… a poem about not being willing to do the hard work of facing all aspects of one’s reality?… of not admitting the horrors of life which abound… of only being able to acknowledge the pleasures of life, superficial as they may be…

… the fourth is about being naked on a naked horse riding through the rain… now there is a foundational nature image… i read that the Japanese worshipped the horse as a god and “believed that the “divine spirit” appeared in the human world on horseback”¹… i also read that the horse is very important in Buddhism… Siddhartha², the future Buddha, had a white horse that was his favorite and which transported him when he escaped from palace life and began the journey of becoming a spiritual leader… and so, the image of naked human on naked horse in the rain is a deeply spiritual image?…

… the fifth is about a fly wringing its front and hind legs, begging not to be killed… again, i would struggle to be a Buddhist in such a situation…

… and the sixth is about a cat frolicking on a scale and weighing itself… this catches my attention because i wonder what sort of scale would have been in use during Issa’s lifetime?…

02 Meditations:

Issa haiku…

… the one that catches my attention this morning is about being under a cherry tree and finding it strange to be alive… cherry blossoms are valued in Japan for there ephemeral nature, flowering briefly and gloriously, gone too soon¹… like life itself…

… Issa knows the lessons the cherry tree teaches, that life is brief and one needs to be alive to it… to find existence strange at any moment in time and space is being alive to it…

… this will be a bit of a non sequitur, but in the film Black Widow, the theme of family is the unifying good… family of Avengers, family, even make believe family, of Russian spies… family transcends everything…

… i find in literature and life, again and again, that what is truly important are the simple things… home, family, being alive to nature and life… all these things can be had and enjoyed for free (or little cost) as long as basic necessities are met… we are constantly being distracted from these core simple things, especially by the consumer culture we live in, where things upon things are the symbol of a good life… even as aware of this as i am, i struggle to execute, have never gotten close to centering my life around the simple pleasures…

… family is a particular challenge for me… my birth family is difficult and scattered to three of the four corners of the continent, my in law family is a good one, but not the family i grew up with… i have never had children, just wife, dogs and cats, which do teach me many things, including the brevity of life…

… as i write this, an epiphany of sorts… living well along the lines of simple pleasures is anti-market, anti-capitalist… it’s generally anti most forms of economic organization… it is rigorously repressed as a way to conduct one’s life…

02 Meditations:

The haiku of Issa…

… the poem that stand out today is about a snail climbing Mt. Fuji… the poet backs the snails endeavor but urges slow and steady… the apparent futility of a snail climbing a mountain is the poem’s pivot point… the snail might be viewed as the poet and climbing the mountain a spiritual quest… does the poet remind themselves that slow and steady is the way to go?…

… another poem about an Oriole singing at midday…

Image in the Public Domain

… the Black-naped oriole is the only oriole extant in Japan, and is a relatively rare sighting… it is not related to orioles of Europe and the United States…

… so, that an oriole is present and singing at mid day next to a river, an exceptional moment?… there doesn’t seem to be symbolism beyond that… birds in general are related to death and rebirth, as they are in many cultures, but no special significance seems to be attached to the Black-naped oriole…

… so, an Oriole singing at midday while the river flows quietly is perhaps a contemplation of middle aged life…

… the Oriole seems to be more important in Chinese culture…

… and then i learn that the Japanese have adopted the Chinese character for Oriole to represent the Bush Warbler, their equivalent to the Black-naped oriole… both birds have beautiful songs and both birds herald spring… so, it is possible that the oriole in the poem is a bush warbler… and the poem gets seasonal reference by its presence…

04 Micro Poem:

Chaos in the house– and still birds greet the dawn.

02 Meditations:

Buson, from New Flower Picking…

… a story about foxes appearing out of nowhere in the middle of the night… foxes (Kitsune) have a long mythic tradition in Japan… old foxes are thought to be extremely intelligent, long lived, and have magical powers, like shape shifting into human form… the mythology of foxes is my main takeaway from New Flower Picking…

… anxious to move on to more haiku, i read the short biography on Issa, whose life was peppered with difficult situations with his step mother and with marriages which were tragic or unfortunate…

… of the first three poems, one about snow melting, the village flooding, with children, stands out, because the flood one expects is that of water, instead, it is of children…

… Issa is supposed to be more down to earth than Basho or Buson…

02 Buson Poetry:

… a poem cycle, about a beautiful young woman traveling home we are told… the willow tree is mentioned as it was yesterday… i am wondering about symbology of the willow tree…

… in Japanese myth and folklore, the willow is associated with ghosts¹…

… i look up river symbology in Japan, there is one article that talks about rivers representing the flow of life, which is so in many cultures… however, more generally water is significant in Japanese philosophy as one of the five elements of Godai…

水 Sui or mizu, meaning “Water”, represents the fluid, flowing, and the formless things in the world. Outside of the obvious example of rivers and the lake, plants are also categorized under sui, as they adapt to their environment, growing and changing according to the direction of the sun and the changing seasons. Blood and other bodily fluids are represented by sui, as are mental or emotional tendencies towards adaptation and change. Sui can be associated with thought, defensiveness, adaptability, flexibility, suppleness, and magnetism.²

… i return to yesterday’s poem and realize the broad symbology of water is important, along with the willow tree… a woman seeks to keep the poet to her, asks him not to journey on with the flow of the river, but he views her as the one journeying on while he remains as the ghost by the river that cannot follow… it’s a poem about death?…

… today’s poem talks about a young woman journeying through her life to return home to the brother and white haired mother she left to be on her own… again, the flow of life, the journey metaphorical… life’s journey…

02 Meditations:

Buson poetry: Song of the Yodo River…

… on the face of it, a poem about a man and a woman, she asking him to moor his boat and stay with her, he saying she is the one on the move and he cannot follower her…

… i follow up on the Yodo river and Naniwa (what is now central Osaka)…

… what i find is minimal, economic facts and statistics…

… here is a Hokusai print depicting the Yodo river…

… the woman appears to be Chinese, writing in Chinese verse, the man appears to be Japanses, writing in Chinese quatrain format, but in Japanese language… is this a poem about the relationship between two countries, two cultures?…

… the poem is a little sad…

02 Meditations

Buson, long poems…

… Mourning Hokuju Rosen

… so it’s not haiku, but long form poetry… i read the first one about someone loved departed… the poet grieves the absence, it is unclear whether the one loved will return, just that they left and went far away… then there is the friend who lives on the other side of the river…

… i do some research and discover that the poem is about the death of Hokuju Rosen and the great sadness it brings him… i am not able to find much about Hokuju Rosen, it seems he was a master Buson studied under… the last stanza of the poem…

By the image of Amida, I light no candle

and offer no flowers. I sit here alone,

my heart heavy, filled with gratitude.

… Amida, I learn, is Amida Nyorai, the Buddha of Limitless Light…

_ Amida Nyorai (Sanskrit: Amitabha Tathagata), the Buddha of Limitless Light, sits upon a lotus pedestal with his hands forming the mudra of meditation. Amida presides over his own paradise, the Western Pure Land, to which he welcomes any being who calls upon his name. His benevolent gaze, directed toward the viewer below, is symbolic of this boundless compassion. The Pure Land sects of Buddhism, with their emphasis on salvation through faith, stirred the imagination of both courtiers and commoners alike, and temples dedicated to Amida were constructed throughout Japan. Originally installed at a temple in the vicinity of Mount Kōya, this sculpture and the Dainichi Nyorai on the central altar were both acquired by the Museum through negotiations with Yamanaka & Co., the pioneering dealers in Japanese art.¹_

Public Domain photograph, via The Met, Fifth Avenue, NY

… i love the idea of a heavy heart filled with gratitude… contradictory feelings… Buson is sad to loose his teacher, but feels gratitude for his presence in his life…

07 Mindfulness

_ A raven squawking outside my window— how poetic._

02 Meditations

Buson haiku…

… several poems land in this morning’s set…

… one about old man ears and the sound of rain falling down the rain pipe… my old man ears are listening to the rain hitting the pavement outside…

… another one talks about hearing the moon and seeing the frogs croak… what an odd displacement…

… several flowers are mentioned…

… white chrysanthemum…

Chrysanthemums have noble connotations, appearing on the Japanese Imperial Family’s crest for generations. But white chrysanthemums indicate purity, grief, and truth, and are used for funerals.¹

… the peony…

The Japanese peony, considered the “King of Flowers,” has a symbolic meaning that includes wealth, good fortune, honor, daring and masculine bravery. The peony originated in China; around the eighth century, the Chinese introduced the peony to Japan.²

… the iris…

from dark purplish variants to their more pale, pastel violet hues, these are used to represent loyalty, having a noble heart, and good news.³

… i have plunged down a rabbit hole on haiku, reading more and more about what makes haiku, haiku… a lengthy article on the rules developed in North America for haiku content and structure and how those rules are contrary to the classic haiku traditions exemplified by Basho and Buson…

02 Meditation

Buson Haiku…

… the first poem stands out most to me today… a bottomless tub blowing around in the autum wind… it seems so contemporary, i can easily imagine the scene happening in the coming fall… what constitutes a tub for a poet writing in the 1700’s as compared to now would be interesting to see… it could be that the Japanese for tub has more of the time connotations… in English, it is still a much used contemporary term…

… another poem notes a Camellia falling into an old dark well… i don’t have an image in my mind for Camellia, so i look it up… it’s like a carnation and comes in a number of colors but most prevalently in pink or red… i wonder if it signifies anything to the Japanese and look it up… here is what i find in a guide to giving flowers in Japan…

_ Among warriors and samurai, the red camellia symbolized a noble death. Otherwise, the red camellia means love. However, they don’t make good presents for people who are sick or injured because of the way the flowers “behead” themselves when they die._¹

… the flower was popular during the Edo period in Japan… Buson composed poems in the heart of that period… with that information the poem opens up… the flower as symbol of an honorable death, or as symbol of love makes sense in the poem… the flower falling into the old dark well (death) could be a straightforward allusion to seppuku, which ended with beheading by a second’s sword… it could also be a bit more allegorical, the old well symbolizing the poet himself, the Camellia symbolizing love, taken together, finding love at an old age?… could there be a may/December relationship here?…

… it seems that when reading haiku one has to examine every word or phrase for it’s possible symbolism… what seems to be a straight forward observation of a moment can be fraught with implied meanings…

05 Mindfulness

Daily Haiku…

_ Walking, lost in thought— a deer jumps across the trail._

02 Meditations

Haiku of Buson

… i read more on haiku yesterday, trying to ascertain what makes a haiku a haiku as i continue to compose my own on a daily basis… many of the “rules” are broken these days, as they were even in the days of Basho and Buson, though more regularly now…

… of today’s six poems the first stands out because it shadows my own present experience… a grove in summer, and no leaf stirring, meaning no breeze, no relief, which is frightening?, such stillness is frightening, full of portent…

… i read yesterday that haiku’s are the capturing of moments of revelation, sudden understanding… i don’t think the Buson poems are this… i think they are renderings of momentary experience, any leaps being made are leaps into the moment… noting the moment, opens doors for further contemplation…

… another poem depicts the reflection of the moon on the water, which escapes the nets and ropes… a reflection of the moon, not the moon itself… why not look directly at the moon?… why not be in that moment?… something magical about light shimmering on the water… something magical about moonlight… i am reminded of Monet’s waterlily paintings, where what’s reflection and what’s not is a central theme… what is it about reflections that make them so enchanting?… surface of water, humankind’s first mirror?… still water… i wonder if, when we look in a mirror, we have memories of ancient still water mirrors programmed in to our brains… to apprehend the self, that it is self seen in the reflection, what kind of leap is that?…

06 Mindfulness

… today’s haiku…

_ Oppressive heat— where are the thunderstorms?_

05 Haiku

… trying to write at least one haiku a day as an attention to simple things discipline… today’s effort…

Packing and cleaning, late afternoon sun, paints window onto floor.

09 Beach Haiku

Child squealing,

waves breaking,

indolent summer chatter.

07 Beach Haiku

Umbrella raised,

dogs and wife settled,

sea scrubbing the shore.