A hokku by Bashô:
Rain --
Enough to blacken the stubble
In the fields.
This is a very effective yet simple experience of the continuous, cold rain of winter and the darkening and decay of what is left in the fields after the last harvest.
First we are presented with the rain, then given a long, meditative, connective pause in which to experience it. And then we see the dark stubble in the fields as the rain continues to fall.
Once more
It ripples the stars on the pond --
Winter rain.
It is just a passing shower, before which the stars shine clear until the drops begin to fall, and then, after it passes, they appear again.
As translated here, this is another example of the "repeated subject" form, where we alternate naming the subject and repeating the subject in the pronoun "it." In this example "it" precedes the subject, "winter rain."
This is a very cold, clear, and refreshing verse with a strong sense of transience.
The rain of winter is very different from the gentle rain of spring or the warm rain of summer -- it is cold and austere, and is harmonious with the silver light of the winter stars.
A hokku by Issa:
The daikon puller --
He points the way
With a daikon.
I don't know how far the daikon has spread in this country in cookery. When I was a boy most Americans would not have known what it was. Today it is available in lots of groceries -- at least in the Pacific Northwest.
It is a long, narrow radish that looks somewhat like a giant, albino carrot. And sliced thinly, it makes great soup.
This is an example of the humor of hokku, which is not the laugh-out-loud variety, but much more subtle.
It is also, interestingly, a rather un-Issa-like verse, which sometimes means, as in this case, that it fits our approach to hokku rather well.
Much of Issa's verse does not; it is too personal, too much influenced by the sorrows of his troubled childhood.
Notice, by the way, that this verse is translated in our old, useful "repeated subject" form. Only in this case, instead of "it" to repeat the named subject, we use "he" (the daikon puller -- he).
If you are paying attention to the various forms of hokku and how they are used in the model verses I have been posting, you will be forming a formidable array of tools to use when composing your own verse, and you will find that these tools pop right up when need calls.
The order of elements in a hokku is very significant in the final effect.
As is common in everyday life, the most recent event tends to have a kind of emphasis in the mind. Similarly, the last line in a hokku tends -- simply by its placement -- to have a bit more emphasis than the rest.
We can see the effect in this verse by Ryôta:
Who is it,
Burning a lamp at midnight?
Winter rain.
It is the winter rain that receives the emphasis -- the cold rain we are left with.
Keep this in mind when composing and arranging elements.
Of course the overall form of this verse is a "question" hokku -- a verse that asks a question -- always unanswered -- so that we are left with the feeling that only an unanswered question can give.
One could remark, "Well, Blyth said the same thing about the same verse." Yes, essentially he did, though using his own translation. Unfortunately, however, almost no one paid attention to what Blyth said, but rather far too much to what others said who couldn't hold a candle to him. If people had listened to Blyth instead of the "authorities" of the new haiku establishment, the course of modern haiku would have been drastically different, and there would not be the great gap that exists at present between it and hokku.
Superficially, hokku and "haiku" look very similar, but the differences are very significant, and it is such "click" moments that bring us gradually to the mind of hokku, to moving our focus from the subjective individual to humans as a part of, not apart from, Nature.
Hokku requires a literal "change of mind," something very difficult for those conditioned in contemporary haiku to understand; that is why hokku requires a willingness to give up one's preconceptions, and once that is decided, fresh and new things begin to happen -- things begin to fall into place with "clicks" of insight. Such "clicks" become more frequent until one begins to see the point behind it all. Everything begins to make sense.
That is why when one first is exposed to hokku, it seems very easy. Then as one learns more, it begins to seem difficult and even somewhat arbitrary. But then, as one goes deeper and deeper and perception grows (more of those "click" moments), it begins to seem very easy again, but on a whole different level.
As many of you know, "haiku" began with Shiki near the end of the 19th century. Many of his verses still qualify as hokku, but his idea that a verse is a "sketch" from nature led, as I have already written, to a kind of shallowness. We can already see it in verses by him such as this:
One red berry,
Spilled on the frost
Of the garden.
The point is in the contrast of the bright red berry with the white frost, but as such it amounts to little more than an illustration, however pleasant it might be for what it is. We see its limits when contrasted with a verse such as this, by Bashô"
Winter desolation;
In a one-color world,
The sound of the wind.
This verse is by Kyorai:
The windstorm
Will not let it fall to earth --
The winter rain.
Instead of falling, the rain is blown sideways by the strong wind.
Winter, as noted repeatedly, is a return to the basics of life -- light, warmth, nourishment. Take away television, take away electric lights, take away the ability to easily go when and where one wants, and we experience something much closer to the season.
In the old days, there was little to do in winter but remain inside, and if one happened to be alone, inevitably one turned inward.
This time of human "hibernation" was the seclusion of winter, and there are numbers of hokku on the topic, one of which is this by Bashô:
The aging
Of the pine on the gold screen;
Winter seclusion.
Change is not just found in the world outside, but also inside -- inside the dwelling and inside the body and mind. One sees this change in the aging of the pine painted on the screen, noted when all other sensations fade out in the stillness of winter.
This verse, with its gold screen, is a bit rich for hokku, but Bashô tempers that by noticing in it no kind of glory, only seeing that here too all is transitory -- "Et in Arcadia Ego."
Even in times and places when and where one feels, for the moment, happy and secure, even there one finds transience intruding. The Latin phrase is transience speaking: "Even in Arcadia, I am."
A verse by Kyûkoku:
Munch, munch --
The horse eats straw;
A snowy evening.
We have the sound of the horse crunching on his food, we have the cold and the snow and the silence that magnifies the chewing sounds. All this together makes a very sensory yet simple winter hokku.
An end-of-the-year loose translation of a verse by Issa:
The cat
Sits here as one of us;
The departing year.
Issa often saw the commonality among humans and other creatures. Such a verse is particularly meaningful in America, where cats or dogs are often members of the family in spite of the differences in outer form and abilities.
You will recall that when I translate old hokku, I usually stick to those that could easily have been written as "American," but I want to vary from that slightly today (though I plan to make up for it, as you shall see), because a certain verse by Buson is very helpful in learning one aspect of hokku. So here I will translate it as it is in the original, and then I will add an "Americanized" version as a slight variation.
Winter seclusion;
The hills of Yoshino
Of the inmost mind.
It is the silence of winter, and the writer is stuck indoors, "snowbound" whether literally or figuratively. In the stillness one turns inward, and all the outward thoughts dissipate. Suddenly, deep in the mind the hills of Yoshino appear.
This is, as you will recall, one of the ways of writing hokku about one's "self" -- the subject (the writer) treated objectively. One writes about one's "self" no differently than one would about any other sensory experience -- and an image in the mind is something seen, though seen internally. Buson unites inner and outer.
An Americanized (and thus different) version might be:
Winter seclusion;
The Grand Tetons
Of the inmost mind.
This must not be taken as metaphorical but as literal. One could write the verse as:
Winter seclusion;
In the inmost mind,
The Grand Tetons.
That, however, has less of a oneness of mountains and mind than the phrasing of Buson's original.
