Kiyotaki

Although not his death verse, the last haiku Basho completed during his lifetime was 清滝や波に散り込む青松葉　Kiyotaki ya, nami ni chiri-komu, ao-matsuba

..Ah, Kiyotaki!

..Scattered in your swirling waters

..Pine-needles’ green

revised on his deathbed in Osaka from a version composed at Kiyotaki a few months before. The Kiyotaki stream is only a couple of miles from my house in Kyoto, and I took Nobuyuki Yuasa there on Thursday for an evening visit to hear the singing of the 河鹿 kajika frogs from its shingle.

……………………………………………Creeping in the dark

……………………………………………Toward’s Basho’s monument,

……………………………………………A lone firefly ………………………(Sosui)

……Descant warbling

……Of the river-deer frogs -

……A roofless twilight inn ………………….(Tito)

Where Nintoku used to hunt

Emperor Nintoku – / at Mozuno, hunting pheasant / for his amusement (Michio)

Gist: Fourteen Hailstones fell on Mozuno 百舌鳥野, Sakai, in south Osaka, to view the largest tomb in Japan (her ‘Great Pyramid’, from the air ‘keyhole-shaped’ and now completely overgrown with forest) – that of 4th century emperor, Nintoku 仁徳天皇.

Some of Japan’s earliest tanka were written by his first wife, Empress Iwanohime 磐之媛, and at the poem monument there, Michio read us some of her verse.

The walk around the tumulus is nearly two miles, so after completing the first quarter, we ricocheted into Mozuno restaurant for a kukai instead (topics: ancient history and the moon). Below are some of the haiku composed and shared.

A vase, full / Of early summer trees – / Nintoku’s tomb (Tito)

the triple-moated imperial tumulus – / a balmy breeze / swaying it freely (Mizuho)

Summer wind blowing / Down the huge wooded mound – / A memory of ancient sweat (Toshi)

everlasting love / of the empress’s poems: / around his tumulus / ripples gently spread (Keiko)

over the dark moat   a lit dragonfly (Hisashi)

her love poem inscribed / on a giant rock – / summer moon (duro)

Gist: Later, some of the stones rolled on to Mozu Hachimangu shrine, famous for its autumn moon-viewing festival and sacred 800-year-old camphor tree.

On the way back home, many miles away, five of us held an impromptu Yodogawa riverbank moonrise party… before finally melting away into the night.

.

Moon rising … / many jewels / brightening quietly / in the ancient tomb (Kaoru)

My pillow, your arm

White as the radishes dug up

With wooden spades

By the women of mountainous Yamashiro:

Only if this had not been so

Could you truly say

You know me not.

(Emperor Nintoku to Iwahime in 342)

From the Icebox inbox 7

..Puddles in the road

..Capture blue sky -

..The way to Samarkand

………………………………….(Akira Kibi, Uzbekistan)

lightening -

December’s hidden purple

in the dry ivy.

………………………………….(Bamdev Sharma, Kathmandu, Nepal)

.

Holywell Retreat -

among the trees, young voices

call up at trapped kites.

………………………………….(Kamome, Eastbourne, UK)

* according to the author, Holywell Retreat is a grassed enclave in the seafront cliffs

and yet

morning star!

the room full of unwashed glasses

shining   shining

Six-Word

The summer ski-lift. Our huffing, puffing.

(photo: Japan Northern Alps from 7th station to Mt. Ontake. May 18, ‘09)

Can we call this a ‘Six-Word’? I personally feel the Six-Word is closer to Japanese haiku than 5/7/5 syllabled English haiku because it has fewer words in a fixed (6-worded), short form. If a kigo is included, it’s complete! I like ‘huffing/puffing’ in Tito’s post on Mt. Ogura, and have borrowed them. Permission, please!

three for May

Needle-nosed finch
tweezing among
the apple blossoms.

Stubborn tree–
finally a few leaf-shreds
spider out from their buds.

Crossing the street
with her boyfriend, half-dancing
to the ice cream truck.

azalea

purple haze -

beneath the flowering mountain

chainsaws sing

to the fallen cedars

.

つつじ咲きかすめる山のふもとにはチェンソーうたい杉の香のして (tsutsuji saki/kasumeru yama no/fumoto ni wa/chen-sou utai/sugi no ka no shite)…………………………….tanka-style Jap. trans. by Hisashi Miyazaki

Poems for Mt. Ogura

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5

Five years since my 生け石ike’ishi gallery installation 小倉参り (Pilgrim of  Mt. Ogura), at which through haiku, photography, stone arrangements – and a scattering of rubbish and leaves gathered from its slopes – I tried to show people both the beauty and the sadness of the mount. Now we have an NPO, 小倉山百人一集の会 (People Together for Mt. Ogura, see Blogroll on right) to help protect the hill where 藤原定家 Fujiwara Teika compiled his classic 小倉百人一首 (One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each) tanka collection, today well-known as the karuta poem card set.

One of our creative projects is 小倉山百人一句･一首 (One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets on Mt. Ogura), which requires verse (in Japanese or in English) from another twenty people. How about coming along on one of our Mt. Ogura or Saga events this year (see Events & seminars page) and composing something? Haiku/tanka written at the foot of the  mountain are also accepted. Mt. O. is the central misty one below …

Huffing and puffing / my friends climb the hill : / Stopping, / a distant river speaks.

From the Icebox inbox 6

(by Philippa Yaa de Villiers)

In the heat of the midday sun I stopped the rush, stepped out of the flow, to compose a letter to my father. It started with pleasantries, moving swiftly to blame and doubled back to self-pity. I don’t want to lose him. But I have never had him; he is more than the genes that made me, but his image is faded. This makes no sense: we have no memories together. No washes to wring the colour out, to sieve the smells, no endless meals around an immovable table. I have no claim on him, nor him on me, yet I crave his stake driven into my forbidden terrain.

The distant father
waves from a mountain, hidden
by my crying hands 

Kikakuza 1st International Haibun Contest Results

GRAND PRIX For Rose (John Parsons, UK)

HIGHLY COMMENDED As If It Does So Just For Me (Barbara Taylor, Australia); Untitled (Ion Codrescu, Romania); Close Encounters (Bamboo Shoot, UK)

HONORABLE MENTIONS Wanting (Philippa Yaa de Villiers, South Africa); Untitled (Zinovy Y Vayman, USA); The Ark (Angelee Deodhar, India); Last Wish (Jo Pacsoo, UK); Untitled (Valeria Simonova, Italy); April Gusts (Luce Pelletier, Canada)

TOTAL: 90 entries. JUDGES: Nobuyuki Yuasa & Stephen Henry Gill

CEREMONY: April 4th. The Grand Prix-winning piece was read aloud at a small ceremony held at the temple of Jogyoji 上行寺 in Isehara, where  Basho’s disciple Kikaku’s grave is located. A cherry-tree was flowering and a lark was singing overhead.

READ ON: Click the page link at top right of top page entitled “Kikakuza ‘09 Winning Haibun”, in order to read the top four entries. If you are accessing via Contemporary Haibun Online, first click the picture of hailstones at the top and then you’ll get the page menu.

Lament

A petal of cherry blossom

Falls fluttering on me

– Ah, too heavy.

From Jane in Katy, Texas

petals fallen from
these Cherokee roses…
what landmark for me?

(2 Apr. The house is on a corner and surrounded by a high wooden fence on which Cherokee roses – small, white, single – flourished for a time, providing a distinctive landmark from a block or more away. )

In royal splendor
it sits
silent among the roars and squeaks
of an awakening world:
one grey-and-white dove

(11 Apr.)