Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241)  is considered by many to be the preeminent Japanese poet.  As a poet, diarist and critic, his influence on premodern Japanese poetry is unsurpasssed.

His poetry specialized almost exclusively in the waka, the dominant lyrical form of the Japanese classical period, a five-line poem consisting of thirty-one syllables, arranged in measures of five syllables, then seven, five, seven, and seven.        

Touched by drizzling rain,
All around, the treetops
With their colours say
Autumn in evening is
A time of change, indeed.

                                     As I gaze out,
                                     Neither blossom nor Autumn leaves
                                     Are here;
                                     In a beachfront hut
                                     On an Autumn evening.

Fallen rain dripping
From the leaning eaves
So shallow that
Swiftly in pours
The moonlight.

                                Awaiting one whose
                                Path among the foothills
                                Has vanished, I think;
                                The cedar by my eaves
                                Is buried deep in snow.

Links:

A Prof studies this poet.

Various links and a good article.

His poems.

I am always on the lookout for poems that I like.  I find that Japanese poets often provide the succinct but poignant quality that appeals to me.  Here are some poems of Izumi Shikibu which I like.  I had never heard of this particular lady until somebody told me about her.  She lived around the year 1000 in Heian Japan and became one of the celebrated court ladies of this time, living an unconventional sort of life, taking many lovers and writing poetry.

Out of the dark,
Into a dark path
I now must enter:
Shine [on me] from afar
Moon of the mountain fringe

Another version (thanks to T):

                                                               The way I must enter

                                                                leads through darkness to darkness-

                                                                 O moon above the mountains’ rim,

                                                                  Please shine a little further

                                                                   on my path

                                             Is it only I
                                             Who will hold you in my thoughts?
                                              How terrible,
                                              That you, my destination
                                               Should not know at all.

In Autumn,
Unwracked by cares
The reed fronds too
Hang heavy at the tips
With dewfall upon them. 

                                                                        I’m at such a loss;
                                                                        Fireflies by the marsh:
                                                                        From my breast
                                                                        Wanders out
                                                                        My soul, or so it seems.
Folk their hearts
Exchange for love;
As moths
Plainly will be burnt,
Yet they see it not

                                               Related links:

Illustrations of the Illustrated Man

Poems of a Saikoku Pilgrimage

Translations from Japanese (Rexroth)

 Blackberries

 We were just friends when

 you tripped on the blackberry vine.

 I got to my knees beside you and

Helped pick out the thorns,

Putting your fingers in my mouth to

Bite them out with my teeth.

Then to make you laugh I fed you

Sun-warmed blackberries

Lying there in the grass, and

Then I kissed you,tasting the

Blackberry juice on your

Lips and tongue.         

       I just recently got back from my annual trip to Texas to visit my folks.  My father got an apartment this past year so that he could be closer to my mother.  This way he could visit her daily and not have to make the long commute back and forth to his house.  I stayed with him at the apartment for a while, visiting my mother daily, before going with him on a road trip to the panhandle of Florida.  We did this last year and enjoyed the trip very much.  It was the same this year.  I think the best part was the driving together, seeing new things and just spending time together.  I can’t begin to express how satisfying this was to me.

               We came back to the lake houses and worked  hard for a week, mowing, cutting downed trees, clearing fallen branches, etc.  It was hot…107 one time with every day over 100.  I sweated…oh man, how I sweated.  I also got bites.  I’m not sure from what all.  I know there were ants and mosquitoes…but how to explain the rows of small bumps making elongated welts that have popped up in such unexpected places?  I thought I knew most of the biting critters…chiggers, ticks, spiders, etc.  But none of them produce the bumps that I got…and still have (scratching this inch long welt on my forefinger)!  This could be the result of handling poison ivy I suppose…but what about these (scratching furiously)?

     The idea of simplicity in our lives seems to be growing in our awareness.  We find that in an increasingly complex existence, simplification has an immense appeal.  We seem to have too many things, and our lives become filled with clutter, both physically and mentally.  Sometimes we yearn for simpler times when the world was easier to comprehend.  However, as I talked about in the Haiku section, simplicity can in itself be extremely complex, e.g.  fly fishing, ideograms, haiku.  Most activities, if enough skill is involved, can be reached through hard effort only, where the inherent complexity is reduced to apparent simplicity.  And beliefs…does one begin with elaborate formulations of thought only to simplify with study and time?  Do the gods and goddesses with their elaborate history become over time the one god and then a generalized “creator” that has no corporeality of any type?

     The movement toward simplicity seems to be spreading.  David Bruno has started what he calls the 100 Thing Challenge.  He is attempting to whittle his possessions down to just 100 items (See Time Magazine article June 5, 2008).  One thing this effort taught him was deciding what was really important in his life.

       I have only once experienced the exhilaration that comes from having almost nothing.  I was living in an apartment at the time and awoke about 3 am for some reason.  The door to my bedroom was half open and I could see a flickering orange light reflecting on it.  I rose and rushed into the living room to see that a fire had started in the corner of the apartment.  As I looked for something to put it out, the flames caught a large paper Japanese lantern that hung in the corner and with a loud whoosh and crackle the lantern, the curtains, the couch practically exploded in flames.  There I was, naked, the heat singing my face, my hair.  I could hear the window glass break and the distant shouts of somebody on the street.  Dense choking smoke filled the room.

     The smart thing to have done was to immediately leave the apartment…but I was unclothed, and loathe to run naked out on to the cold January streets.  So I ran back into the bedroom, pulled on a pair of blue jeans, ran back into blazing living room and tried to open the door which led into the hall way.  For some reason the door stuck, and at the first few tugs refused to open.  Since this had never happened before, I am not sure of the cause.  Perhaps the door expanded in the heat, or there was a pressure differential caused by  the superheated air.  I felt a moment that almost verged on panic, but then with a great tug I was able to open the door and go out into the pitch black hallway.   If I had been smart, I would have gotten to my hands and knees and crawled along that choking hall.  The next day I could see where its walls were darkend by the black smoke to within a foot of the floor.  Instead, choking on the smoke, I groped my way to the stairway door and made my way down to the first floor and then outside.

     Later, going to the hospital wearing nothing but my blue jeans, no shirt and no shoes (no service?), I felt a sense of release thinking about the loss of all my possessions (few though they were at the time!).  A new start!  A new beginning with nothing to tie or weigh me down.   I remember this sense of freedom and exhilaration today, when I ponder the immense burden of possessions that weighs my life down.  I think of the 100 Thing Challenge and wonder if it might be a worthwhile endeavor.  I would have to exclude my books from the calculation of course!

More infliction… 

Leave Taking 

 Shall I leave in the summer

 while cicadas shrill and

The nights are full of gardenia

and honeysuckle?

Or shall I leave in Autumn

with Crimson maples and

The harvest moon?

Perhaps in Winter with

the sting of sleet and

the rattle of bare branches

in a hopeless wind?

No! I want to go in

early Spring with

crocus and nodding daffodils

in a light mist with

rain dripping from the eaves…

“May I live simply, that others may simply live.” Mahatma Ghandhi 

I thought that I might put some of my poems in some of my posts.  This is one:

Reflection

When you ponder the

Calendar of your days,

Do you recall the times

Of strife, of betrayal,

Of heartbreak?

Or…do you recall the

Quiet calm times filled

With beauty and tranquility?

Basho (Matsuo Kinsaku–ca. 1644-1694) was one of the most influential of the Japanese poets, famous for his hakai and clear haiku poems.  I first encountered him while reading some of his accounts of his wanderings across Japan in which he combined his description of the journey with his poetry (The Narrow Road to the Deep North). Check the links for more on the life of this wonderful man.  I will be adding some of my favorites of his poems in the days to come…

This first fallen snow
is barely enough to bend
the jonquil leaves

Into the ancient pond
A frog jumps
Water’s sound!

(see here for 30 translations of this poem, probably the most famous in Japan)

Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond,
A frog jumped into water —
A deep resonance.

On a withered branch
a crow is perched:
an autumn evening.

Wikipedia article

A very readable account of his life…part of this wonderful site

Every May when the large rhododendron by the driveway begins to bloom, eventually producing this incredibly lovely display of pink blossoms that cover the entire plant, I begin to feel this tension. As I drive out every morning I stop and roll down my car window and look at the exquisite details in the pink flowers–the stamens, the pistil, the small brown speckles in the throat of the flower. At night when I return they seem to glow in the darkness welcoming me home.

And yet at the very height of the blooming period, I begin to experience a curious feeling of delight and apprehension. When I first felt this tension upon viewing the flowers, I was confused as to its origin. Why should I experience this sensation? Then as the blooming period reached its zenith and the flowers begin to turn brown and fall about the base of the huge plant, I understood. As I gazed on the brown withered blossoms clinging to the plant and strewn about the ground, I knew that the sweet, exquisite loveliness of the blossoms was transient, fleeting, and that soon they would wither and die. The presence of such exuberant life in sharp juxtaposition with decay and death produced this tension in me–produced a mixture of sweet melancholy and joy at the same time.

Upon reflection I realize that I have often had this particular feeling throughout my life. I remember once looking at the hand of a girl that I was holding. Moonlight shown down on us, and as I looked at her hand in mine, I thought of the beauty of the smooth flesh and how soon it would in the not too distant future become wrinkled and old before it eventually turned to dust. I became filled with a sense of how transient life was and a sadness filled me. “Bones,” I muttered which caused her to jerk her hand back in surprise.

I felt the same emotion reading war time letters from my father to his family and looking at photographs of him and my mother during that turbulent time. I felt it especially strong looking at photographs of my father and his best friend. They had grown up together in a small Texas town, gone to the same schools, played football on the same team. This friend had a car and would carry my father and my mother about during their courtship. They both had graduated on a Friday and both went into the military service on Monday–my father into the Army-Airforce, and his best friend into the Marines. I used to look at their picture together standing in front of my father’s house with their arms on each other’s shoulders —two young men with all their lives ahead of them.  My father lived through the war and now has children, grandchildren and great grandchildren and is still alive and healthy today at age eighty-three. His friend? He died a hero’s death at Iwo Jima and was awarded the Navy Cross. He lies in the black sands of that bloody island far from the dusty west Texas town in which he grew up.  Youth, promise…transience…

There were many other times that I felt this melancholy, this sadness, and I was surprised to learn that the Japanese had already recognized this emotion centuries ago and had even applied a term to it: “mono no aware” (AH-wah-reh, three syllables, with the accent on the first). “The phrase is derived from the word aware, which in Heian Japan meant sensitivity or sadness, and the word mono, meaning things, and describes beauty as an awareness of the transience of all things, and a gentle sadness at their passing.” This sense of the precariousness of life and the certainty of its passing permeates Japanese art, poetry, music and religion.

4October2007, 9:37 pm