New Poetry Blog No 188 Narrow Roads to Inner Lands Scene 11

  Basho statue at Hiraizumi

SCENE ELEVEN FROM NARROW ROADS TO INNER LANDS 

 

Takate

In this scene Bashō mentions a visit to a famous temple and later, speaking of a renowned warrior, once more reflects on the transitory nature of fame, leading him to write a well-known haiku.

On Zuiganji temple from Wikipedia- Seiryuzan Zuigan-ji is a Rinzai Zen Buddhist temple in located in the town of Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. Belonging to the Myōshin-ji-branch of Rinzai Zen, it was founded in 828 during the Heian period by Jikaku Daishi.

Also from Wikipedia information on Lord Yoshitsune- Minamoto no Yoshitsune (1159 – June 15, 1189) was a military commander of the Minamoto clan of Japan in the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. During the Genpei War, he led a series of battles which toppled the Ise-Heishi branch of the Taira clan, helping his half-brother Yoritomo consolidate power. He is considered one of the greatest and the most popular warriors of his era, and one of the most famous samurai fighters in the history of Japan. Yoshitsune perished after being betrayed by the son of a trusted ally.

Zuiganji Temple

SCENE ELEVEN FROM NARROW ROADS TO INNER LANDS

Day. On the foothills of Hiraizumi, called Takadate. Enter Bashō and Sora.

BASHŌ

So many miles we've walked since we first left!

Across wide plains where long grass waves with wind,

By sides of sparkling streams and slow, brown rivers,

Through valleys, moorlands - up steep, stony mountains,

You've trod with me as firmest friend and now

Once more I'm leading you up rising ground

To clamber over scattered stones and boulders,

On narrow tracks, in Hiraizumi's foothills.

SORA

But in this region know as Takadate,

My legs are younger for such tasks; but truly

We've seen some weary walking on our ways,

And in these last few days more than our share.

(They sit upon some boulders.)

BASHŌ

Hard ground and twenty miles a day. Indeed,

Our path's been strange since we left Matsushima.

Do you recall right details of our journey?

I must make all our travel clear in thought

For wish to write about our wanderings,

And meld my many notes and all our verses,

Which are as stones picked, scattered, from our path,

To make a modest monument to life.

SORA

Let me recall- to Zuiganji temple

We went and saw its seven stately halls,

Embellished so with pure, gleam of gold.

BASHŌ

Quite true. I met the priest, the thirty-second,

Descended from the temple's first, great founder.

(Sora rises.)

SORA

We left for Hiraizumi on the twelfth,

And trailed a narrow, isolated way

Through mountain regions - paths trod only by

The single hunter or the lonely axeman.

BASHŌ

Not really knowing where we were, our way

Was lost and only by good luck at last

We finished up at port Ishinomaki.

Boats by the hundreds moored in harbour waters

And countless streaks of smoke continually

Arose from houses thronging by the shore.

So after lonely, winding tracks, I took

              Brief pleasure viewing such a busy place.

Yet none would offer hospitality.

So after asking all and everywhere,

We found a hovel and we passed the night

Uneasy in our souls.

SORA

And so, next morning,

We took the river road for two hard days.

We went by wide, grass moors and dismal marshes,

Stayed in a village overnight, and now

Have reached this place, quite famed in history.

BASHŌ

Yes, famed in history, yet half-forgotten.

For here that warrior, great-valiant

Lord Yoshitsune, was met by forced, self-death.

Three generations of the Fujiwara,

Famed family, passed by, drift of a dream.

The mountain stays the only thing unchanged.

The castle's vanished- only shrines are standing,

Their gilded pillars etched by frost and snow,

Their jewelled doors rent by the wind, because

Still-pious villagers have kept them here.

The great lives and the brave deeds of the dead

Slip swiftly into time's oblivion.

And only all-devouring grass still thrives.

(Bashō produces ink and writing slab. He writes.)

Summer grass: is this

What's left at last of deeds and

Dreams of warriors?

(Basho and Sora pause reflectively)

BASHŌ

Ah, hardest ways still wait for us: the passes

Across rough mountain range to Dewa province.

Yet if we cross and safely come back down,

With friends we'll know Obanazawa town.

(Bashō and Sora exit.)

 Yoshitsune

 Basho's Haiku

Poetry Blog No 187 Viewing Evening

VIEWING EVENING 

 

This short piece goes from the "sharp" solidities to the fractal forms to the ethereal dusk to question the "relativities" of perception.

Its form is composed of varied meters "bound together" to some extent by rhymes and half rhymes. Taking "u" to represent unstressed syllables and "/" to represent stressed ones-

u / u / u / u /

u / u / u / u / u

u / u / u / u /

u / u / u / u / u

u / u / u / u /

u / u / u / u /

/ u / u u

/ u / u

/ u /

/ u / u

/ u /

/ u / u / u /

/ u / u / u /

u u / u / u / u

u / u / u / u

u u / u u /

u u / u u /

VIEWING EVENING

Above the sharp solidities

of dark shapes on the eastward vastness,

the box-like shops and fractal trees,

a white moon rides the rising darkness,

last shine of air, where last crows rove,

still hiding stars with rose and mauve.

Viewing evening,

turning from

fading fractions

to the sum-

how that air-sea draws my sight

into musing on life's light.

Oh, ethereal, vast ocean,

wide world of last light's weaving.

is the emptiness full,

is the full only seeming?

Poetry Blog No 186 Three February Haiku

THREE FEBRUARY HAIKU 

These three haiku were written on a short walk through

 a back suburb in a country town 

on a recent cloudy February day in Australia. 

Here February is the last summer month,

 reckoning by traditional seasons. It is a virtue 

of the haiku form that it encourages us to 

look at the everyday in new ways with awareness. 

It is not to make a dogmatic point 

but to stick with the concrete reality of

 the moment of this perception. 

Personally I feel that sticking to the five, seven,

 five syllable structure helps this attain 

a certain form. 

Writing haiku is an experience not a theory. 

 





THREE FEBRUARY HAIKU 


One

Late summer clouds and
Blue patches ripple on a 
Roadside puddle's face. 

 Two
Rusting train tracks in
Sudden February sun-
Such abandoned ways. 

 Three

Camphor Laurel leaves-
Softest whispers calling in
Summer-brushing breeze.

Poetry Blog No 185 South Wind Companion

 

SOUTH WIND COMPANION 

 

This poem relates to the thought that beyond the conversation we can have with others, there is a "conversation", only apprehended in inner stillness , as it were, beyond the normal chatter of the mind, with the "flow" of the world itself. Often the wind has been felt to be like this "flow".

Here is a quote (Burton translation) from Chung Tzu ( an ancient Chinese Taoist ):

Tzu-ch'i said, "The Great Clod belches out breath and its name is wind. So long as it doesn't come forth, nothing happens. But when it does, then ten thousand hollows begin crying wildly. Can't you hear them, long drawn out? In the mountain forests that lash and sway, there are huge trees a hundred spans around with hollows and openings like noses, like mouths, like ears, like jugs, like cups, like mortars, like rifts, like ruts. They roar like waves, whistle like arrows, screech, gasp, cry, wail, moan, and howl, those in the lead calling out yeee!, those behind calling out yuuu! In a gentle breeze they answer faintly, but in a full gale the chorus is gigantic. And when the fierce wind has passed on, then all the hollows are empty again. Have you never seen the tossing and trembling that goes on?"

Tzu-yu said, "By the piping of earth, then, you mean simply [the sound of] these hollows, and by the piping of man [the sound of] flutes and whistles. But may I ask about the piping of Heaven?"

Tzu-ch'i said, "Blowing on the ten thousand things in a different way, so that each can be itself - all take what they want for themselves, but who does the sounding?

SOUTH WIND COMPANION

South wind brushing leaves in darkness,

Flying past moon’s mist-white face,

Cool companion of the lonely,

Wind, through trees, what do you whisper

To the solitude of night?

Wanderer through wide, sky-vastness,

Where the stars shine in high darkness,

With your sighs spun from tall trees,

Roaming wind, what do you murmur

Secretly to weary sense?

Wind, what secrets do you softly

Sing to those who do not find

Solicitude in human speech?

Roving wind, is there a meaning

In your leafy susurrations?

Yet there spins no normal sense

In soft-brushing syllables

Conjured from the darkened green.

What your words? No thought can say-

Only heart's own secret hearing.

Secret as the secret seeing,

Deep as depths of silent being,

Is your speech, to subtle sensing,

With your leaf-tongued sibilants,

Of the spirit of the world?

Is your soft, leaf-rustling call

As a flow that flows through all?

Poetry Blog No 184 Moonset

MOONSET 

 

      In some ways a printed poem can be considered as more than a conveyance of meaning and imagery. It can also (like a written music score) be thought of as a pattern for an acoustic “object”.

     This object can be re-created by recitation or even by quietly reading aloud to oneself.

In this short poem two of the acoustic features (amongst others) are the repetition (or assonance) of the vowel i (as in night) and the stressed, unstressed, unstressed foot in the meter. This is called a dactyl or dactylic foot. (Wild is the wind as it rides with the night) . Although most lines end on a stressed syllable, because the meaning doesn't directly run over to the next line (technically called enjambment) a slight pause before speaking the next line could be felt as two "silent" unstressed syllables.

 

                                    MOONSET

Wild is the wind as it rides with the night;

Wild is the wind as it sets the sky sighing.

Bright's the thin moon as westward it's lying.

Bright is the white-shining chalice of light,

Bearing the circle of earth-light's far shine.

Silent's the sightless, swift passing of time.

Silent is time as it's endlessly flying.

Bright is the moonship on time's ebbing tide;

Bright as it glides beneath dark of earth side;

Smiling good-bye on horizon's black bar-

Leaving the night to wild wind, dark and star.