![]() ![]() The spirits return to visit families during the Obon holiday, which takes place at different times throughout the country, though always in autumn. Or this one, by Issa, concerned with a nest of baby crows:Īnother guy doesn’t get the same treatment from Issa as he comes back home from traveling: Both are a frequent haiku theme.Īs is the scarecrow, whose enormous white gloves and drooping posture has inspired Japan’s elderly for generations, and this poem from Buson, which is one of my favorite haiku in any season:Īnd this poem in which famed Japanese novelist Natsume Souseki gets in some bird’s face and taunts it: Bird Clappers, far from being men in fields who cheer the winged ones on along their journey, are noise-making devices fashioned to keep pesky birds away from the crop. Passing flocks of migratory birds, when grouped together in the sky, are “bird-clouds” in Japanese. ![]() “Autumn wind” seems to be the favored choice for translators, though, which can make for some monotonous haiku. This poet sees a waterwheel reflecting the nighttime sky:Īnother common motif in this season’s haiku is the wind, sometimes called “the voice of autumn,” the sound of crunchy leaves rustling in the distance, or “autumn music,” the sound of rain falling on those leaves. As a New Englander, Autumn is my favorite season, so maybe these poems are merely lacking my enthusiasm, but perhaps pumpkin spice coffee isn’t big enough in Japan. I’m not sure why the galaxy our planet resides in has been deemed “seasonal,” but, much like the moon, it seems included because Autumn is lacking in short-term charms. One famous moon poem is from the poet Ryokan, whose name just happens to be the same as the traditional Japanese style of hotel, who was robbed during the night: Throughout the fall the moon becomes the aki no tsuki, or the “autumn moon,” distinct from other moons, and the autumn ends with the “chestnut moon” ( azukizuki?).Īnother moon fun-fact: The word in Japanese also means “wine cup,” so sitting and drinking wine in the autumn (coincidentally, sake season) is a common past time: Its presence seems to delight haiku poets enough that it is now the dominant image of the season, tied, perhaps, with the changing colors of the trees.Įvery day that the moon appears in September is so surprising that the Japanese language has special names for the moon each time it shows up in the first week: The first moon in September is hatsuzuki, the second moon is futsukazuki, and so on. Something that came as no surprise to me, but seemed to astonish many haiku poets, is that the moon continues to orbit the Earth between the summer and winter. Now that we’re in the fall, our Poetic Meteorology Association posts have come full-circle. What do the haiku meteorologists have for us this season? As mentioned before, haiku is often written by way of the seijiki, a book containing lists of seasonal motifs. It’s September now, but the temperatures still hover in the 80s, thunderstorms still threaten my daily sushi pickup, and cicadas still squawk through the trees like tortured squirrels. Here, Autumn starts in August, rather than the September Equinox.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |