Issa's Untidy Hut: raven

Friday, February 8, 2013

Silent Flowers 3: Four Poems

Artwork by Nanae Ito

This is the third post on the diminutive little Hallmark haiku collection Silent Flowers. I revisited this book last month, taking a look at 6 poems that I hadn't talked in my first post back in 2010. Here are 4 more excellent poems from Silent Flowers, translated by R. H. Blyth and astutely selected by Dorothy Price, that haven't appeared in either post.

The first three all appear within a page of each other, and seem to focus on a single image, the smaller the better:

    The kitten
Holds down the leaf,
    For a moment.

            Issa

Here is a fine example of the exception to the rule, the rule being: show, never tell. Well, perhaps the reason it works is that it does a bit of both.

You can see the morning breeze
Blowing the hairs
Of the caterpillar.

Buson

I would say with the layout we can feel the morning breeze though we can't see it, particularly in the fine opening line (which, of course, breaks yet another rule).

    Grasshopper, —
Do not trample to pieces
    The pearls of bright dew.

           Issa

The observation in the later two poems is so finely delineated as to be absolutely marvelous. Each does what a ku should do - captures a perfect little moment; yet in this case all three share another quality. These are not pictures painted, or photos snapped: they are all moments in motion, the movement acutely emphasizing the fleeting quality of a moment, yet capturing it in that movement.

Magicians at work.

A few more pages along comes a 4th ku, and this one captures not just the body and mind, but the soul:

Yield to the willow
All the loathing, all the desire
Of your heart

Bashō

I yi yi yi! We are yielding to the willow, we are yielding to desire, we are yeilding to loathing, we are yielding to our heart ...

Let us yield to Bashō.

At this rate, I have a feeling there will be a 4th post on Silent Flowers.

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