The Haiku of Issa
Today’s six Haiku summarized with notes on what they mean or suggest to me, or the questions they raise…
- watching dawn over green fields with his father…
- the generations, time, intertwines… green fields are spring, early summer fields, the poet will be younger than the father…
- unaware fish in a tub, cooling at the gate…
- about to be dinner?… this is not the first poem suggesting animals are unaware of time, of the near future, of the past… they are all about just being in the present moment…
- ducks quacking on a new year’s morning…
- in celebration?, or just doing what ducks do?… a sign that nothing has changed… a quack to greet the new year… humans make of it what they will…
- the world of dew, and yet…
- one of the more famous and enigmatic poems Issa wrote… dew is short lived past the dawn… as the sun climbs, it evaporates away, yet while there, magic occurs, little worlds by the millions, sparkling diamonds… yes, dew is dew, nothing more, and yet, when gazed upon by eyes that see… and yet…
- a spring day lingers in the pools…
- i guess this would be the pools of a stream or small river…
- beneath an image of Buddha, tiresome spring flowers…
- initially i thought statue of Buddha, then i thought painting or print depicting Buddha… which makes me think of a Buddha alter in the home with spring flowers placed beneath it… why tiresome?… is it tiresome by comparison to the concept of Buddha?… is the devotion of placing flowers tiresome… why tiresome?…