Haiku is the snapshot of poetry

Haiku, and the similar Tanka, are two of my favorite forms of poetry. They are snapshots, photographs, ghostly images of a moment that many of us might normally miss. One example;


A Barley Wagon
Lags – then leaps
behind the horse
-Shiba Fukio (1903 – 1930)


If only I saw beauty in these, the most subtle of moments, as Shiba Fukio did. I feel like so much of what our society is made of sets us up for expectations that are completely unrealistic. Everything is a glorious cocophony of emotion in the moviesm set up by car chases, prince charming, plastic women, and impossible powers. But, cannot that same beauty – perhaps even a purer form – be found in a moment that lasts only for a brief second? The way the grass shines as it ripples in the wind, the first drop of rain to hit your skin, the moment of hesitation before a first kiss, the first taste of a perfect meal.

Most of the haiku and Tanka I have are from a book called “Japanese Death Poems”, a collection compiled by Yoel Hoffman. While they all (except the one about the Barley wagon and the burnt storehouse) are written in the last moments of people lives, note that many of them are not sad. In fact, quite a few are beautiful, and convey an air of contentedness. Death is just an event, really. It’s a multitude of other variables that makes it sad. In any case, here are some of my favorites. First, the Tanka. Then, the haiku. All of the following words were taken from Hoffman’s book, and aren’t my own.



Winds Passing
Through the shaded grove
Weigh down
My robes
With the scent of blossoms.

~~

My storehouse burned down –
Now nothing stands between me
And the moon above

~~

Not knowing
That my body lies
Upon Mount Kamo’s rocks,
My love
Awaits me

~~

Overtaken by darkness
I will lodge under
The boughs of a tree.
Flowers alone
Host me tonight.

~~

Both the victor
And the vanquished are
But drops of dew,
But bolts of lightning-
Thus should we view the world

~~

The following are specifically Death Haiku, and were written just before the time of death of the author.



Asei – Died 1752

Flowers of the grass
Scarcely shown, and withered
Name and all

~~

Baiko – Died in February 1903, at the age of sixty.

Plum petals falling
I look up – the sky;
A clear crisp moon.

~~

Bairyu – Died June 11th, 1863, at the age of fifty nine

O hydrangea-
You change and change
Back to your primal color

~~




Bokukei – Died May 16th, 1869

Cuckoo, I too
Sing, spitting blood
My welling thoughts…

~~

Chine – Died on may 15th, 1688, at about the age of 28.

It lights up
As lightly as it fades:
A firefly

Chine was the sister of Mukai Kyorai, a disciple and friend of Basho’s. After Chine’s death, Kyorai wrote

Sadly I see
The light fade on my palm:
A firefly

After Chine’s death, Kyorai was airing out Chine’s summer robe. At the moment he was doing so, he received a poem written in his sister’s memory by basho.

Airing out the robe
Pf one who is no more:
Autumn cleaning