Basho Revisited, such stillness

shizu kasa ya   iwa ni shimi iru   semi no koe


such stillness
piercing the rock
a cicada's voice

In my first anthology of my haiku, which was published in 1998 (on own account) I defined haiku as the poetry of silence and emptiness. I think that a lot of our fellow haijin (haiku poets) shall say the same of haiku.
Basho wrote haiku about stillness, emptiness and loneliness, as we already have seen in this series of essays. The above verse is, in my opinion, one of his best haiku with stillness as theme. The stillness of the mountains becomes very strong by the fragile voice of the cicada.
This verse is not based on reality, because a cicada's voice can't pierce a rock, but it works with what is felt (also a sense) and not with what is thought. By the way Basho wrote this haiku at the so called 'mountain temple' in Yamagata. Yamagata was one of the places which Basho eagerly would visit on his 'Narrow Road'


Ah! that sound
the song of a Nightingale
deepens the silence


Isn't it a nice one? I love the Nightingale's song and love to write haiku about it. I have written several haiku with the Nightingale in it. For example the following one:

an old temple
shelter for the night -
a Nightingale sings



It's a haiku I have written in 'My Narrow Road'.


Sincerely,

Basho Revisited, this door of grass

As I mentioned in the previous episode of Basho Revisited I will use haiku from Basho's 'Narrow Road to the Far North'. In this episode I will tell something about the first verse which he has recorded for the haibun 'Narrow Road'.

Basho had a lot of friends and disciples at the time that he went on his journey to the far north. They all had come to visit him and to say goodbye. many of them had presents and gifts for Basho. Things he could use on his journey.
They accompanied him on the first two or three miles, say the first 10 km. When he went off he wrote:



kusa no to mo   sumi kawara yo zo   hina no ie


this door of grass
the resident changes for a time
a house of dolls

When Basho left his Banana tree cottage, he turned it over to Heiemon, who was married with a family. Thus, already, in Basho's bachelor quarters was the red ramp put up for the festival of the dolls for the girls of the family.
Basho and his good friend and student Sora left in this journey on May 16th. This verse fits with Basho's first sentence of the book: 'The months and days are the passing guests of a hundred generations, and the years that come and go are travelers, also'. (Source: Jane Reichhold's Old Pond: Basho's (almost) thousand haiku).

I wrote, as I stated in the previous episode, my own version of 'The Journey to the Far North'. The first verse I wrote for 'My Narrow Road' (after the preface) was:

the last night
I couldn't sleep -
a Nightingale sings

followed by a verse with farewell words:

a farewell verse
scribbled on a receipt
don't forget me

I wonder ... it's for sure a haiku in the Spirit of Chevrefeuille :), but is it the same as Basho's?

Until next time.