Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Buson and Billy Collins: the Butterfly and the Moth

In prepping for this week's Billy Collins poetry discussion, I ran across a poem of his that is something of a meditation on a haiku, although that might be stretching the concept a bit. As an introduction to it, here's a poem by Busôn:



                 Butterfly
           sleeping
                 on the temple bell
Busôn



Probably, and justifiably, his most famous haiku, it took quite sometime before my dull, dull mind heard the bell ring and I realized how it literally resonates. Over the years, I've read many versions of this and this is the simplest and, in my opinion, the best.

Now Mr. Collins:




Japan

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

Billy Collins



There are some things I like about this poem, other things not so much. The title, "Japan," for me is a bit of a conundrum, but perhaps, as is frequently the case with Collins, it's just a launching point. At first I was puzzled by his use of moth instead of butterfly, which robs it of an allusion to Chuang Tzu's famous work:



"I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. "




Most versions go with butterfly, but I did find one that used moth, specifically a moon-moth, so there you go. As usual, when confronted with a puzzle, I turn to Master Issa:



on the flower pot
does the butterfly, too
hear Buddha's promise?

Issa translated by David Lanoue



best,
Don

6 comments:

  1. i've read "Japan" somewhere else online and thought it was so-so, but i think the more i read it the more i like it. i think the use of moth instead of butterfly somehow makes the poem less "poetic," more accessible. not sure how, though.

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  2. perhaps Collins simply got mixed up between butterfly and moth in the writing of the poem. but the use of the moth, lighter than a butterfly and not nearly as visually appealing, lends the poem a sort of common weight. i'm so-so on Collin's poems at times, but his often talked about accessibilty certainly gives his work an odd appeal.

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  3. her "moth" is doing-it s-job

    as, nearly every word in this poem is (doing "it s job"


    so maybe Billy should have used farfalla? same
    three syllables/beats as "butterfly"

    moth! boom... and all that "moth" connotes in mind

    "moth" is the 'right' word/image here..to my

    variegated | mind

    and to the piece is 'true'

    ... if you 'get my drift'


    (there is also a farfalla press...

    they interviewed me

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  4. It's my favorite Billy Collins poem, and the best portrait of digesting and appreciating haiku I've ever read. The specifics of the particular haiku featured in this piece can be debated ( as most things in haiku too often are )but they are inconsequential to the essence of this poem ... experiencing haiku.

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  5. york2frisco, thanks - experiencing haiku is what it's all about ...

    Don

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