SAYING GOODBYE TO THE ANCESTORS

Let’s revisit this same haiku from the past two posts:

 

谷神  [グシエン]

秋夜
蝋燭消えて
川音消えず

 
Gushen

       

Akiyoru

rousoku kiete

kawa oto kiezu

 

Gushen (The Valley Spirit)

 

A Fall night

the candle dies out

but the sound of the river doesn’t

 

The Japanese, without knowing the experience I wrote this haiku for, would have a completely different immediate take on it—another fall night event that is traditional in parts of Japan. (I say immediate, because haiku should be mulled over—and can have different subjective experiences come out of it, different levels of understanding, different aesthetic images).

First of all they would not get the title—in Japanese it reads tanigami (Valley God), though it would have furigana—a little phonetic alphabet written next to the Kanji so they would see that it actually reads, gushen, and they would immediately know that it is Chinese.

But there is no Taoism in Japan. Taoism has heavy influence through Buddhism, but there are no Taoist temples, or monks or priests and the Tao Te Ching is not on everyone’s Too Read list. They don’t need it. They have their own spirituality handed down from an ancestral Ural-Altaic shamanism: Shintoism. In fact Shintoism means Way of the Gods, and the ~to is the same character as Tao. In its own way it has a lot of similarities to Taoism.

But the haiku itself speaks to another fall-night tradition, which would come to mind of most Japanese. It comes at the end of O-bon. O-bon happens in the fall, and is most obviously celebrated by festivals all over Japan. Traditionally the fields have been harvested and everyone was celebrating—so there is the thanksgiving aspect to O-bon. Communities come together in community dance to the traditional music of the taiko drums, cymbals and some of the wind instruments common to Shinto. There is a lot of drinking and eating, playing games… A festival is like a county fair in the US.

But O-bon is also a time when the spirits of the dead come back to visit the family. It is a good time, if just after the harvests, to see how well their families are doing. One friend of mine told me that after the death of his grandfather, for years his dad would sprinkle ash in the genkan (the entry way of the house where you take off and leave your shoes) the night before the O-bon season begins just as everyone was going to bed. More than once they woke up to see footprints leading into the house from the door.

In some parts of Japan, at the end of the O-bon season, they go to a river to send off their ancestors. The Japanese, you see, have their own concept of the River Styx, which is a very old axis mundi motif. From Africa, clear around the world to South America you have traditions of rivers carrying one to the land of the dead. In the case of the Japanese, they put a lit candle in a boat folded out of paper, and, saying goodbye to their beloved ancestors, set it adrift and watch it float down the river—their deceased loved ones returning to the land of the dead.

The verb kieru (as in rosouku kiete), can mean to go out, as in the candle goes out, or to disappear. So the haiku could refer to the candle going out, or simply disappearing down the river into the distance.

But the river goes on without stop—forever flowing. Your grandparents said goodbye to their ancestors. Today you will be saying goodbye to your ancestors. But one day, on a fall night, just like tonight, your descendents will be saying goodbye to you, as you too float downstream…

Therefore one could read it as:

A fall night
The candle disappears
the sound of the river doesn’t

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME: A BAD HAIKU FOR A BIRTHDAY CARD

There is a local photographer whose photos from the mountains of Colorado were made into some very beautiful cards sold here (Not the photo I inserted here–I just found that one). There is one of a snowy river winding through a mountain meadow, there are some pine trees near the shore, some of them fairly scraggly. Mountains rise up into the mist in the background. The sky is a typical misty overcast winter sky you often see in the mountains. It seems like a place I have been; in fact I’d almost place it somewhere in Coal Creek Canyon. I took the photo off the card, and framed it with a haiku written in Japanese below it. (I actually did this with a number of these cards–some are winter, some fall, some summer–but this was the first one I saw and I immediately knew I had the perfect haiku for it).

The haiku is one I composed back in about ’97 or ’98. We were staying in my parent’s condo up in Breckenridge Colorado. It was October, but they had already gotten some good snow that year. The condo—is actually a two-story townhouse, and was a great place to escape the city for a while. There was a cozy fireplace, a hot tub on the porch–everything you needed. The forecast called for more snow that afternoon, and I decided to go out and walk around a bit. Heavy snow clouds hung over the small ski town obscuring the peaks. As I walked, I came across a good sized crow sitting atop a pine tree, looking around, and calling out. The haiku immediately came to me:

寒烏でも
待つか
重い雪雲

kangarasu demo

matsu ka

omoi yukigumo

Even the cold crow

awaits?

heavy snow clouds

After cutting the photo off of the card, matting it, writing the haiku with some fancy calligraphy below the photo (I cheated—I have studied Japanese calligraphy with a brush in Japan, but I am not good by any means, so I carefully drew it in pencil first and then went over it with a black felt pen) and framing it, I realized that it just happened to be near my Aunt’s birthday. So I put the haiku in another card with the same photo, and then wrote about how I came across it, and then a bit about the inevitability of nature—how both myself and the already cold crow knew the storm was coming, but there was nothing to stop it, all we could do was to gaman suru–grin and bear it, a very typical Japanese concept

I was so pleased with myself that I quickly ran down to the Post Office and popped it in the mail. Only on the way back home did I realize, that I had just sent this to my aunt who was very educated, had travelled around the world, enjoyed world cultures like myself, and had also spent some significant time in the Orient–she was about to have a birthday in her early 70’s. Yes—-if anyone, my beloved aunt, one of the few in the family who I could walk through an art museum with carrying on in deep conversations about the meaning of the art we were experiencing, she would pick up on some of the other meanings implied by the haiku. Meanings that I didn’t think to explore before sending it to her—-meanings such as the inevitability of death, and the fact that we know it is coming, but there is little we can do. A fall haiku could be one referring to one’s elderly age—but winter—–that is really old! …and it wasn’t even a joyous winter haiku at that…

I quickly sent off another card, with a happy spring haiku—and an explanation that I realized too late some of the other implications of the haiku…

The framed photo, and haiku, still hangs in my basement.

THE LITTLE STONE BUDDHA AND THE LONELY FIFE OF THE RAMEN SELLER

Here is a haiku from 2006. It is about the Jizobosatsu. A bosatsu is a Buddhist Bodhisattva. But a Jizobosatsu is a small stone statue of a little standing Buddha or Bodhisattva. They are placed in shrines and at temples, and so forth. They are meant to protect children.  A common place to find them is at a mountain temple along a trail where a rock juts out over an indentation in the side of the mountain creating a natural shrine like covering.

It is especially common to find a bunch of small ones in such places, put there by women who have had stillborns, had a miscarriage, or had abortions (which is a fairly common means of birth control in Japan.) They are meant for the spirits of the unborn child.

夜の雪也
古地蔵菩
淋しかろ

Yo no yuki ya

furu jizobosatsu

sabishikaro

A snowy night.

The old jizobosatsu

must be lonely…

Here is another one that I will try to relate to you—it is extremely subjective because it has the most meaning to me based on one particular Ramen-seller. In Japan you might find Ramen-sellers–street vendors–pushing their carts of hot ramen through the streets in the evenings and on into the night in many cities and villages (big enough to support them). They carried a fife, and each one had it’s own roughly 4-5 second song that it would play as it moved through the streets to call out to customers. You could often hear common versions of these songs on ramen commercials on TV, where they become theme songs for ramen brands.

When I first lived in Japan, I lived in Moriguchi, a suburb of Osaka, between Osaka and Kyoto. The streets were filled with sweat shops, small factories, and machine shops, between rice fields, cheap apartments, and a share of family run restaurants and bars. One night I heard a song out in the streets coming from a distance–it was a lonely call, almost like a lonely bird calling for its mate. I listened as it grew closer. It would play for about 5 seconds, and then silence, after about 20 seconds or so, it would play again. It got closer and closer until I heard him outside, and looked out the window to see him pushing his cart. I just sat and listened as I heard him slowly disappear in to the distance.

Of all the ramen-seller songs I heard over the years in different parts of Japan, that was my all time favorite. It was also the loneliest of all the ones I ever heard. I don’t know what key it was in—I’m not that good at identifying musical keys, but it was played on a fife. It went something like this (starting with C for simplicity):

(C)——–(D)——(F)——–(E-flat)–(D)–(E-flat)——–(F)–(E-Flat)–(D)–(C)–

Maybe it went to (E-natural) instead of (F), but that was the basic tune.

人なしの雪道
ラーメン屋の
笛

Hitonashi no fuyumichi

ramen-ya no

fue 

In the empty winter street

the Ramen-seller’s

fife

Hitonashi means no people, or without people.

INTRODUCTION TO MY HAIKU BLOG

This is a blog of mostly haiku, in Japanese, composed and translated into English by me. I hope to provide you with not only a heavily nature-based aesthetic experience, but also a glimpse of Japanese culture, perhaps help and inspiration to those learning Japanese, a glimpse into traditional Japanese philosophy, and my own philosophy, some humor, and an occasional bit of Chinese poetry, culture, or philosophy.

I am non-Japanese, and Japanese is not my mother language. In fact, not only am I non-Japanese, I don’t even really care for poetry. At least my general reaction, if you were to buy me a book of poetry, or invite me to a poetry reading, would be one of, ‘NO THANK YOU!’ 

But the fact is, when I was very young, I happened to pick up a book of Chinese poetry, and found that very intriguing—probably the exotic imagery it inspired. And being an old hippy, I do dig beat poetry, and anything that is meant to be revolutionary. And surprisingly, Scottish poetry can be quite interesting with its occasional macabre or violent themes and a little suggested erotica in between.

Some time in my college days, shortly before, or shortly after, I started learning Japanese, I discovered a book on haiku, that started out with a lesson in how to appreciate this unique art form. What I discovered is that each of these short 17-syllable poems, is bursting over with multiple aesthetic experiences, subjectively derived, tied to nature, and often very deep in meaning. Sometimes haiku can be so deep as to almost rip at the veil that separates physical reality from that more deeper and profound reality that underlies all existence.

Haiku is a Japanese art form, and is therefore created from a natural structure of Japanese language. Many poets like to compose haiku in English and other languages, and I have occasionally seen a good English haiku–but generally I do not read much English haiku. Some of it is too contrived and, non-Japanese often do not stick to the basic rules, and so I don’t really get into it.

HOW TO READ HAIKU  

Haiku is meant to be enjoyed like a fine wine. In other words, you mull it over, enjoying all of its different nuances and implications. A really good haiku should give you a kind of, ‘ah Ha!’ experience. Often times that experience will pop right out at you. But to really enjoy haiku, one should not just read it, and then move on–rather it should be experienced: read and then repeated, feeling the different images and ideas it beings to mind. Reading haiku is extremely subjective (and is therefore an ideal Post-Modernistic art form) it provides you with an experience and a season, and you create the picture and all the rest yourself. In fact, by mulling it over, you may create many pictures, and even discover hidden meanings, within the motifs.

Every haiku is tied to a season. The season is indicated by a season word (kigo in Japanese). A season word could be an animal, for example crickets or other noisy insects would right away make one think of summer. It could be tied to weather, snow for example, would immediately make one think of winter, unless it was a Spring Snow, in which case one would think of Spring. It could be an object, or a seasonal event, holiday, or activity. Christmas, for example, would make one think of… what was that season again?

Japanese grammatically makes use of post particles and other structures that English does not have. In haiku, a phrase will often end with the words, ya, or. Kana.  These put stress on that phrase, like an exclamation point. There is a famous haiku that starts with furu ike ya,  which could be translated as, ‘The old pond!’ or, ‘Ah! The old pond.’

There is a special type of haiku called Senryu. It is a satirical haiku, which makes a joke of something. It doesn’t always follow the rules—for example, it may not include a seasonal word. I will post a fair amount of senryu, but humor often has a deeper serious side, and as I will explain, my senryu, has a variety of deeper levels, which point to the pathos of life.

I will also throw in a few Tanka as well as haiku. These are an old form of poetry that use 31 syllables instead of 17.

FOR THOSE LEARNING JAPANESE 

I hope my haiku inspires you to, and helps you to, use read and compose haiku to assist in your learning the Japanese language. Learning a language, and especially getting to that point where you can really think in that language, requires experiencing the language. What better way is there to ‘experience’ Japanese than to experience it aesthetically through creating your own haiku, and enjoying the haiku of others. The grammar and structure can be a bit archaic sometimes. But it is not hard to get used to.

Then you might find, like myself, that there are haiku which you understand in Japanese but are hard to put exactly into English.

On the other hand, you might think, What? Me write haiku in Japanese? I’ll be laughed at!!! Well—-the next part is for you…

HOW CAN A FOREIGNER WRITE HAIKU?

I think Japanese haiku is a great way to aesthetically express oneself even for a non-native speaker. A native speaker who composes haiku might find a non-native speaker’s poem’s to be odd, or poorly composed, or bad haiku in that it is too narrative or has an extra consonant, or is overly heavy on seasonal words, etc, etc, etc. I know that my own haiku can be bad, I don’t pretend to be a master haiku composer, and after all Japanese is not my mother tongue. On the other hand, there are plenty of native speakers who compose haiku without really knowing much about it, and that could be artistically worse than yours or mine if we follow the rules of haiku aesthetics. And the fact is that even Japanese who make a hobby of composing haiku produce a lot of poor haiku themselves—which can be endlessly debated and improved upon and so forth.

Today’s Japanese, influenced by the massive thrust to industrialization during the Meiji Era, along with overly objectivistic Confucian Ethics imported from China, have a problem of over-rationalizing everything, including haiku. Haiku is of the heart, not of the mind. While I know that I write bad haiku, I also know that I write those that are good. A number of years ago I entered a haiku contest through one of the big temples in Japan. The real purpose was to help people with their haiku. The priest, a recognized expert in haiku, would critique the haiku and provide an alternative. I won that particular contest with the priest saying, “Of all the many haiku I read each month, this one really stood out. This one embodies the spirit of haiku. Because of the katakana non-Japanese name, I assume this is from a foreigner which is also surprising. Very good.”

You must also remember that, as a foreigner, a Japanese person already expects your haiku to be flawed. Many Japanese understand their language to be extremely difficult for a foreigner to master (I would say there are plenty of languages far more difficult, and that once you get used to the differences Japanese is actually not that difficult to master). The implication of this is that, 1.) Some Japanese will be overly complimentary, and praise even poor crude attempts, and overlook mistakes; 2.) Other Japanese will be overly critical and fail to see the value and aesthetic qualities of the haiku.

If you can compose haiku, which you can aesthetically mull over and produce an artistic, or even spiritual experience, especially in multiple subjective ways, then you are successfully creating haiku for yourself. If you can enjoy it, then who cares what someone else filled with opinions (and probably lacking in ability) thinks. Now if others can gain their own subjective experiences from your creation, then you are creating something really worthwhile.

Some of my haiku, I fear may be overly descriptive in Japanese, or may be too heavy on seasonal words, but translated into English, I like it—so there again—is it bad?

This blog originally started as a joke on an internet forum this past January (2013). I followed up the joke with some haiku, and people liked it. I soon added some more haiku, and people really dug it. More and more people started following it, so after several months—-here it is, a blog of haiku.