"Even in Kyoto ... I long for Kyoto:" Bashō by Hass

Last week, I mentioned that I really connected for the first time in a resonant way with Bashō via some of William Howard Cohen's unusual translations from the 1970s.  I've continued reading the haiku translations of Robert Hass after doing a recent post on his renderings of  Issa.  I thought this week, I'd marry those two posts and look at Hass on Bashō.

Until recently, I'd never properly warmed up to Bashō, yet he is a favorite of many of the folks who write me regularly.  I went through the nearly 100 translations that Hass provides and come up with a scant 12 that I really like.  That being said, the ones I like are very fine, indeed.  I see that previously from David Landis Barnhill's collection of 700 Bashō poems, I selected 35 I enjoyed very much, so the math seems comparable. From Jane Reichhold's complete Bashō book, I enjoyed 45 from the 1000+ she translated.   From Hass's selection:

       Even  in Kyoto—
hearing the cuckoo's cry—
       I long for Kyoto.

I love this haiku.  It has a certain post-modern quality that gives it a great contemporary appeal, yet describes a very essential truism about the nature of life.    This is a poem about memory and nostalgia and, probably more importantly, it addresses the second of the 4 Noble Truths: "the origin of suffering is attachment."   What is felt here is the sweetness, the very humanness, of the pain caused by attachment.    This may be my very favorite Bashō poem.

       First day of spring—
I keep thinking about
       the end of autumn.

Again, memory plays a big part in this haiku.   Truly, spring and autumn share many qualities; but for the direction of the wind, one is hard put to tell which season is which on any given day.  And, of course, the wind doesn't know what month it is.  How often in describing beautiful weather in autumn we mention blustery weather in spring as and vice-versa.  Still, what is the poet exactly thinking about the end of autumn?

        The jars of octopus—
brief dreams
        under the summer moon.

The oddness of the two elements of this haiku - an octopus in a jar and brief, disturbed dreams - are what unites the imagery.   The oddness is the meaning and, as such, encapsulates  the oddness of life itself.

       It's not like anything
they compare it to—
       the summer moon.

Pure, unadulterated Zen in spirit, if not in execution.  Talk about the finger pointing at the moon!  This one tells the reader in no uncertain terms that there is no finger.

       As the sound fades,
the scent of flowers comes up—
       the evening bell.

I've been thinking a lot about this haiku, so much so that I believe I will be using it in the introductory haiku class in October I'll be conducting.  What I've been thinking about this I can sum up in one word: vibrations.   That's not what all the critics tell me I should be thinking but I'm thinking it anyway.

       A cicada shell;
it sang itself
       utterly away.

How lyrical can it get?  Anymore lyrical than this?   I doubt it.  The ennui of life perfectly sketched, emphasizing how beautiful sadness might be, if perceived a certain way at a certain time.

       Year after year
on the monkey's face
       a monkey's face.

Another ku that has a post-modern feel, combined again with a Zen feeling, both in philosophy and in execution.  This time the reader cannot see the man behind the curtain.   This poem also recalls for me personally the story I recounted in last week's post about suddenly seeing human faces as having overwhelmingly animal characteristics.   

     A wild sea—
and flowing out toward Sado Island,
     the Milky Way.

The visual image is at once surreal, overpowering, and lyrical.  Yosano Akiko has a beautiful tanka about the Milky Way - the collection of her work, The River of Stars, refers to it - and there are a number of other haiku in this tradition.  Issa, I believe, has at least one ("A clear view / in the soup kettle / ... Milky Way," translated by David G. Lanoue).   In this rendition of Bashō's haiku, since the sea is wild the Milky Way can't be a reflection.  More likely it is so wild, that the sky and sea seem to be one.  Perhaps it is a clear night before a storm or a clearing one just after.

       A caterpillar,
this deep in fall—
       still not a butterfly.

Is this a strikingly modern haiku in its implications?   If a reader insisted that this was senryu rather than haiku, it would have a different resonance than perhaps originally intended, but a significant resonance none the less.   

       The dragonfly
can't quite land
       on that blade of grass.

Here is a moment, a series of contiguous moments actually, so perfectly captured through minute observation that it may only be described as immensely beautiful.  This is as painterly as Buson - actually, it is beyond painterly, it is cinematic.

       A group of them
gazing at the moon,
       not one face beautiful.

This poem has an Issa quality about it.  On the surface, it is about a group of people at a moon viewing party. Somehow, there seems to be something very attractive about the lack of beauty in Bashō's companions.  Is the moon's face, too, ugly?

       Ripening barley—
does it get that color
       from the skylark's tears?

This last is a favorite of mine - a striking image, a philosophical inquiry or, perhaps, a scientific one.  It reminds me a bit of one of Bashō's most famous, and one of my favorite, haiku.   For me, both show a very practical side to the concept of reincarnation.

The summer's grass!
all that's left
of ancient warriors' dreams.

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This Friday feature poem from the archive is from Lilliput Review #137, May 2004.  It is a haiku that may remind you of a little something:

Flower
bent by a butterfly ...
broken dream

Jean Michel Guillaumond

garden butterfly--
the child crawls, it flies
crawls, it flies..

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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