from the Icebox inbox – 53
Category Archives: Haiku
Cambridge, England Haiku
Spending a fortnight in the university city of Cambridge, finding nothing much has changed in a quarter of a century.
tail whisking
an urban squirrel
finds a chestnut
autumn comes early this year
among the crisped leaves
polished conkers
school’s out!
boys’ coat pockets
bulging
bus stop
under the horse chestnut tree
now and then a thwack
stock-still heron
ever watchful by the Cam
so easy to miss
young swans
how clean they keep
their dusk-grey feathers
September
音もなく濃霧の中を嵐行く
Dense fog all over—
Somewhere behind its dark veil
A storm is moving.
.
赤ん坊の頭ほどある梨求む
A pear as large as
The head of a new-born babe—
I carry it home.
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白赤の曼殊沙華咲く畔の道
Along the footpath
Red and white amaryllis
Between the rice fields.
Water Haiku: falling, swallowing, rising
梅雨出水渓を転がる石の音
Flooded by the rain,
Stones rolling down the valley
With muffled voices.
猛暑来て水腹苦し食は枯れ
A heatwave arrives—
By drinking too much water
My appetite is lost.
猛暑来て浴びてみたしや滝飛沫
A waterfall spray—
How I yearn to bathe in it
In this hot season!
ナイヤガラ奈落に落ちて空に舞う
Niagara Falls—
Falling into an abyss,
Rising to heaven.
Sosui = Nobuyuki Yuasa. Haiku composed in June 2022 at Nakamurada, Gunma
Of Mangoes and the Sea Breeze
Here are a few haiku from the long summer in the seaside city of Chennai, South India. ……. (Geethanjali Rajan)
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summer dawn
many songs
from the Asian Koel
left-overs
from the squirrel’s feast
scent of ripe mangoes
sultry noon
the fan’s groans
punctuate snores
the jasmine leaf
is a baby praying mantis
evening stillness
orange dusk
the gentle swish
of coconut fronds
end of summer –
the sound of the waves
in my conch
Songs for Spirits 魂のうた
.A selection of 59 tanka, 11 haiku and 3 English haibun by Kiyoko Ogawa (Taibowsha Corp., 2022). The haiku and tanka are given in both Japanese and English.
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From the Preface: “There are some Japanese poets… not in favour of the idea that one poet writes both haiku and tanka… I myself would like to feel free… Sometimes I intend to compose a tanka, ending up by writing a haiku, and vice versa. I won’t mind if my flexibility is criticized.”
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The five sections of the book are focussed, respectively, on the death of Kiyoko’s mother, journeys to Leipzig and Australia, rural scenes around Lake Biwa, and the transience of our ‘Floating World’. Highly recommended!
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In Japan, ￥1,000 + p&p. From abroad, US$ 10 incl. p&p. Enquiries/orders to: kiyoko66ogawa”at”gmail.com
Green Pigeon Man
the old pond
a freedom fighter drops his pants
and plunges in
Simon Piggott wrote this haiku one hot summer’s day in Oshika-mura, Nagano, at 1,000m in Japan’s Southern Alps. He lived there for decades in an old wooden house he had named Saimon-tei 祭文亭, occasionally opening it up as a theatre and concert venue. He worked primarily as a translator, acted for a time as Kamasawa Village deputy headman, and led the organization supporting the local Shinto shrine, while also tending the nearby cairn to Prince Munenaga 宗良親王 (son of Emp. Godaigo and 14th century resistance leader for the Southern Court against the North), who had fled there. Simon had once presented on Munenaga and Oshika-mura to our Hibikiai Forum seminar in Kyoto.
Born in Northamptonshire, England on 7 April 1950, he passed away after a bout with skin cancer on 8th June, aged 72. He had studied Japanese Language & Literature in the 1970s at SOAS, London University, ahead of me, and much later, David Stormer, too. After graduation Simon returned to Japan and never left. We had played in the same football team in Tokyo in the early 1980s: the Hachiko Boys! Simon was a gifted, independent soul and taught those of us who visited him much about the art of country living. A breath of fresh air! He leaves behind a wife, three daughters, and seven grandchildren. We will sorely miss this unsung freedom-fighting Englishman here in Japan. Thank you, Saimon.
+ RIP +
いづかたも山の端ちかき柴の戸は月見る空やすくなかるらむ
on every side mountains
tower up around
my brushwood cottage
so narrow is the sky
in which i view the moon
(by Munenaga, trans. SP)
look past the garden
snow mountains are welcoming
stars, the confetti
(by SP)
Finally, and movingly, a short excerpt from a piece he wrote on his blogsite, back in April:
… It was a beautiful spot, looking out to the high mountains across the valley. It was also adjacent to the place where he had cut down trees for firewood all those years ago.
He walked very slowly, still not confident whether his body wouldn’t be damaged by the exertion. But, so far, it seemed to be holding up.
As he neared his destination he saw an uncommon bird flying horizontally through the trees. Jays and rooks were common here, but it wasn’t one of those. By the flash of colour that he had caught sight of he identified it as an aobato, a green pigeon, a bird whose distinctive call he occasionally heard, but which he had only actually seen a few times. To see it today of all days seemed auspicious.
Immediately he decided that, in accordance with the Buddhist custom of taking a new name after death, he would call himself aobato-koji — Green Pigeon Man.
It was a joke. But he was also serious. Green Pigeon Man.
Presently he arrived at the clearing where the small statue for the dead farm animals stood. He searched for a suitable place to put the stone that would commemorate him, the Green Pigeon Man. About ten metres away he found four closely grouped pines. He would put his stone here between the trees.
Thus he would become the Green Pigeon Man of the Four Pines.
Then, satisfied with what he had accomplished, he set off back down the mountain.
He didn’t see the green pigeon again, but, in the forest just above his house, did faintly hear its call.
my gravestone is up:
unknown, unvisited, this
virgin rock perhaps
one day will kisses cover
like oscar’s in père lachaise*
Notes – *alluding to Oscar Wilde’s tomb, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.
The old pond haiku was later published in our 2005 anthology Enhaiklopedia.
The full piece, Green Pigeon Man of the Four Pines, is available at Simon’s blogsite, here.
Richard Donovan and Tito hope to go to Oshika sometime to pay our respects at Green Pigeon Man’s gravestone.
Fair Weather in May
The rainy season came early this year to Haruna (Gunma-ken), but we did have some fair weather in May. I wrote the following poems on such days. (Nobuyuki Yuasa)
五月晴れ野から薫風窓に入る
Fair weather in May—
A scented wind, blowing in
From the fields around.
五月晴れ瀬も堰も越え鮎上る
Fair weather in May—
Fighting the rapids and weirs
Ayu leap upstream.
柿若葉揺れて反射が目に染みる
Fresh persimmon leaves
Dancing, now dazzle my eyes
With their reflections.
一夜明け五月の浅間雪もなし
One morning in May,
Overnight the snow has gone
From Mt. Asama!
夏雲を背に飛び回る燕ろめ
Swallows have returned—
They draw circles and spirals
Against summer clouds.
Notes: ayu – sweetfish; Mt. Asama – active 2,568m volcano on Gunma-Nagano border.
Kyoto Isshu Trail Haike X – the Final Stretch
Happy with the soft rainy day we were forecast, eight Hailstone haiku hikers assemble by the first giant red torii gateway at Fushimi Inari 伏見稲荷. Morning, April 24th. We pray for safe completion of the final leg of our two-year Isshu Trail circuit of the Old Capital, then watch a ceremony taking place accompanied by gagaku music.
Three businessmen
blessed by the golden bells
of a shrine maiden—
hissing rain David McCullough
A fake but beautiful white sacred horse; a tunnel of vermilion torii arches; ignoring crowd etiquette; an obscure signpost at which we must step away onto a slippery mountain track, reinforced in sections where bamboo forest is being farmed.
Life force—
through the cemented path
a bamboo shoot! Margarite Westra
A bend where o-misogi waterfall ablution (to massed chanting, some way below us on the right) fuses with the soft, insistent vibrato of hidden frogs (above us on the left): an amazing soundscape! No one’s haiku quite does it justice.
spring rain
on this muddy trail
how refreshingly exciting Duro Jaiye
The pussy willow
unveils itself:
the path,
a three-pronged fork Tomiko Nakayama
Identifying new green leaves through smartphone photo searches; coming down into allotments; onions, gone to seed; then backstreets, the most impressive being the old Oiwa Kaido 大岩街道 with its wooden eaves; receiving a call from Kazue in Osaka, wishing us a rainless lunch.
As witnessed in our haiku, the Trail itself and its comely puddles, has so far been the star… but now we enter the numinous precincts of Oiwa Jinja 大岩神社, with its silent cloud-wrapped forest, its clear black pool, its Aztec-feeling stone torii (designed by Domoto Insho 土本印象), its shy boulders.
After the kingfisher,
Across the pond
The flash of raindrops Richard Donovan
Below the dripping
rock shrine
cloud loosens its moorings—
the redolent earth! Tito
Kazue’s prayer for us works, and as we emerge out of the forest onto the ridge, the rain lets up, and we can luncheon on benches looking over the southern part of Kyoto towards a gently revealed distant Osaka. Sharing of goodies; camaraderie; ascending cloud base; spring flowers. We descend into the landscape… all the way to Momoyama Castle 桃山城.
Distant mountains
wrapped in spring haze—
the last trail sign Akihiko Hayashi
Duro’s shoe gives way and has to be tied together with a plastic bag and cord. He squelches on towards our goal, Saiganji Temple 西岸寺, where Basho had once, in spring 1685, sought the blessing of its well-reputed, octogenarian monk, Ninko 任口, and had written:
わが衣に伏見の桃の雫せよ
Peach blossoms of Fushimi,
onto my robe please drop
some of your dew…
Eventually, at the end of many alleys, we find the little temple and, just outside the pavilion of Aburakake Jizo 油かけ地蔵, share our haiku musings before heading off to sample a local sake called ‘Momo no Shizuku’ (Peach Dew) in the Fushimi rice-wine merchants, Aburacho 油長. “Kampai to our completion of the Kyoto Isshu Trail!”
A red fire bucket
At the temple Basho visited—
Last cherry petals float Mayumi Kawaharada
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from the Icebox inbox – 52
Haiku poems (and one haibun) selected from Icebox submissions (Jan. – Mar. 2022) by Sosui (Nobuyuki Yuasa):
ancestral house
the old tree and I
share our memories Mira
last sliver of sunlight
gray geese still honking, grazing
on dark earth Sydney Solis
arises from the fog
and disappears in it –
the pilgrim Momiji
jasmine scent…
morning sun warms
the bellies of storks K. Ramesh
No Fishing sign
a heron’s eye
catches mine John Parsons
Haibun:
Under my high-legged sofa is an old brown suitcase with remnants from my dear deceased parents. It has been sitting there since my sister and I cleared out our childhood home nine years ago. Like a constant reminder, it has been on our “to do” list since: sorting out diaries, letters from relatives and papers from our father’s work as professor. But each time my sister visited, we postponed it as just too much – just now – when the sun was shining or a museum or film lured us to less heartbreaking activities. We know how fast we packed that heavy old thing! Years went by and last May my little sister became ill with cancer and died after just one month. So short a time to say all the unsaid things from a long life! Now I am the sole matriarch and the suitcase has been shouting at me to be opened. To my surprise my father wrote drafts of his correspondence.
The paper crackles
Thin between my fingertips
Letters from beloved Ulla Bruun
Once a lump of clay—
Three sharp pieces in the sink
still hold memories David Sinex
Crooner’s recording
From a promenade bandstand
Vies with wind and waves. Kamome
in the dance of snowflakes
a Japanese white-eye begs food
from me in the garden Yoshiharu Kondo
Sosui’s comments:
The criteria used in my selection were (1) to choose one piece from each contributor and (2) to choose the poems that struck my heart in one way or another. My comments are as follows.
Both the author and the tree may be silent, but Mira’s poem is very eloquent nonetheless. Sydney Solis’s poem is a beautiful description of an evening scene. I wondered if it might be possible to move ‘grazing’ to the third line, though. Momiji’s poem not only describes the fog but also the inner mind of the pilgrim very well—full of anxiety but looking for peace. K. Ramesh’s poem is a vivid description of a morning scene. I smelled jasmine and felt the warmth of the sunlight. John Parsons’s poem catches a poignant moment well. I happen to be a fisherman myself, and have always detested ‘No Fishing’ signs and enjoyed meeting herons. Although they are our rivals, they can sit on a stone in the stream like a philosopher. They do have very sharp eyes, though.
Ulla Bruun’s haibun deals with a common theme, but I found it very sincere. I chose only one of the poems after the prose section, but it is a powerful one with which to conclude the piece. I found David Sinex’s poem somewhat mystifying, but thought-provoking at the same time. I wondered if it might not be possible to add a short prose paragraph to make the poem more understandable. Kamome’s poem describes the loud voice of the singer effectively. I wonder, though, which is really louder, the singer’s voice or the wind and waves. Singers nowadays may use electronic devices to make their voices very loud but, even so, winds and waves are more powerful, or at least it should be so. I enjoyed reading Yoshiharu’s poem on white-eyes (mejiro). I am also fond of these tiny green birds. Spring does not come until they are around.
Please allow me also to share a few haiku poems of my own. Feel free either to skip them altogether or to send me your own comments through the reply box.
The sky dawns today
Flushed in the softest of pink —
We know spring is here. ほんのりとピンクに染まる春の朝
A pair of crows fly
From a plum blossom village
To their mountain home. 梅が咲く里から山へ鴉二羽
A pair of white-eyes
Sing by turns in a hedgerow
In their sweetest voice. 生垣に目白鳴き交う声優し
With its sudden cry
A pheasant broke the silence
Of a spring morning. ケンケンと雉鳴き春のしじま断つ
Although I wrote the following poem years ago, I repeat it every year when the cherry blossom season is over.
Cherry blossoms gone—
Now I sit down to enjoy
Blossoms in my heart. 散り果ててやっと心の花見かな
Kyoto Isshu Trail Haike IX
Fine as rice bran
the hillside rain:
tram station
in the woods
…. (Tito)
6 March, a day of lively weather. Three women, three men start out from Ninose heading upstream along the Kurama River. Two of the women have been ‘awarded’ martenitsa* brooches, sent to Tito a few days earlier by haiku poet-artist Venelina Petkova. On spying her first flowering tree of spring, the recipient must take it off and make a wish. But, on a day in which snow is in the forecast, will the two women get to see any blossom?
below the graveyard —
a fisherman casts
one shining line
…. (David)
After less than a mile, walking towards us come two more men – a father and son. The party of eight, now complete, soon passes another white paper-trimmed ritual wheel* as we enter the village of Kurama.
a flurry of snow
disappears in deep forest —
stippled sunshine
…. (Akihiko)
Sakuramochi* are bought and eaten at the foot of the broad steps leading up to Yuki Shrine, famed for its October Fire Festival. Eighth century priest, Saicho, had had a vision of Yakushi, the Medicine Buddha, near here, so the pass over which we must now trudge goes by the name of Yakkozaka-toge 薬王坂峠, Medicine King Pass.
a tit’s chirp
opens the blue sky —
that spring blue!
…. (Akihiko)
Descending steeply to the northwest, we come upon the village of Shizuhara.
One after the other
Snow and sunlight —
A white plum blooms
…. (Mayumi K.)
the high village
gusted by March wind —
peach blossom
…. (David)
Martenitsas have now been taken off and wishes made! The sky gods seem to be sparring – Rain, Sleet, Hail, Snow, Sun and Wind. Having first dutifully prayed at the village shrine, we seek shelter from another shower at a pavilion housing, amongst other things, New Year’s rice-straw cast-offs. We eat the lunches we have brought and enjoy the meteorological show. There is even a hint of a sleet-bow.
From blue skies
the Milky Way’s descended …
as a river of snow
…. (Margarite)
Three old cedars
reaching for the sky:
their heaven,
their earth
…. (Margarite)
We cross Shizuhara River on a bridge, the rounded granite outcrops of Mt. Kompira looming up ahead. The valley along which we are now walking soon closes down again, and the Isshu Trail begins a second climb – Ebumi Pass 江文峠.
Cresting the pass …
feeling the windblown snowflakes
smart on my face
…. (Tito)
After a wild descent, the Vale of Ohara now opens out before us. David takes us to Ebumi Shrine, to see the giant cryptomeria*, which wears a long sacred rope around its massive bole.
The moss-covered steps
To an ancient shrine —
Early spring snow
…. (Mayumi K.)
Giving thanks for the safe completion of this leg of our Kyoto mountain circuit, we head off along drystone walls and peer through the village gates of Ohara, our destination, catching glimpses of corners of gardens. Ahead of us rise the ramparts of Mt. Hiei; behind us, away to the north, the distant snowy ghost of Mt. Hira. The Takano River accompanies us with its merriment.
At the bus-stop, all perhaps now feel the glow of having lived with the Elements for a day in early March.
* Notes:
ritual wheel – (featured in the slideshow) indicating a prayer station for the Fire Festival
martenitsa – see here
sakuramochi – rice-cake stuffed with sweet azuki-bean paste and wrapped in a fragrant cherry-leaf
cryptomeria – sugi, a type of giant conifer
Creatures of Winter
Nobuyuki Yuasa (Sosui) has asked me to share these new winter haiku of his. There will be a new ‘from the Icebox inbox’ posting soon. Happy holidays to all of our readers!
All that must depart,
I leave them to the cold wind
And shut myself up.
去るものは風に任せて冬籠 saru mono wa kaze ni makasete fuyugomori
A pot of young pines,
How deep the green of their needles
In this winter scene.
一鉢の松の若木や緑濃し hitohachi no matsu no wakagi ya midori koushi
A winter crow perched
On an electric wire, sharpens
Its beak against it.
電線に嘴研ぐや冬烏 densen ni kuchibashi togu ya fuyugarasu
A young cat asleep
In a sunny spot, moving
Its ears now and then.
若猫は日向で寝ても耳動く wakaneko wa hinata ni netemo mimi ugoku
A December storm —
Two rainbow pillars stand up
In the Western sky.
冬の虹二本立ちたる西の空 fuyu no niji nihon tachitaru nishi no sora
Icebox 