inflorescence of reed grass

March 26 2009

The inflorescence of reed grass
waving by the tidal river
flowing swiftly upstream
dissolves to nothing
as I stop thinking.

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

Just Another Springtime Peepers Poem

Peepers Again

Like a memory thawing
after seasons of bitter amnesia,
the sound of peepers—
drenched in the depths of fifteen years—
singing the spring is always new now.

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

B5: Mathematical Splash

So many translations of the Basho Splash poem! And here’s another one, but now for something completely different, from Mathematical Poetry, a mathematical translation that goes like this:

Frog = Splash(The Self – The Mind)/ The Old Pond + Noise

So, I’d like to try my hand at this game using my own interpretation.

Frog = (Old Pond (Enlightenment - Ego) / Splash) + The Universe

It doesn’t equate in the same way with all the triangles and such, but it works for this mind.

Kokoro Notebook #1

The snow has mostly melted. Now is the time to resume my walking. To that purpose, I strolled along the road, by the river, looking for whatever struck my fancy. I noticed a lot of broken branches on one of the lone white birch trees, too old to bend like the one of Robert Frost, but never too old to break. And so this winter’s ice storm took its toll. Several of its branches hung like so many broken arms of Shiva. My body sympathized having taken quite the spill this January. Luckily no bones were broken, although tendons and muscles still ache today. But spring is coming. Snowdrops are blooming beneath the cover of a shrub.

broken branches of a birch
spring across the street
where snowdrops climb toward heaven

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

FT14: in High Olana

American Xanadu

In High Olana, Frederic Church,
sitting on his green veranda,
paints this Hudson River slice
of earth, Catskill streams of consciousness
dreaming up mists of paradise.

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

B4: I just have three words for you

It seems like there was some kind of synchronicity going on with the Basho frog poem recently, translating it with one word per line.

From the aforementioned tobikomu – 365 days of overdoing Bashō:

pond
frog
slurp

And from the newcomer, Cultural Criticism From The Grocery Department:

pond
frog
whatever

Since the first two lines are the same, the difference resides in the 'slurp' and the 'whatever.' Both of course miss by a Hosomichi mile. But that’s neither here nor there nor now.

With ‘slurp’ I see the frog lapping up the pond with his killer tongue. On the other hand, maybe I’m seeing the pond swallow the frog. Else, maybe it’s Basho that’s been swallowed.

With ‘whatever,’ we have the birth of cool. The pond is chilly. The frog is hip. Both are lost in the existential yawning of the universe.

Here and now, I feel tempted to offer my own alternative. But of course, I’ve done these two one better already:

Basho
Splash!

Wet Snow Poem in Pentameter Tanka

After Paradise

In heaven, trees are lacquered with a diamond
bark, and angel wings as white as cumulus
clouds adorn their bejeweled branches in
a cottony show. Come afternoon, when the earth
returns, all melt and fall like melting snow.

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

Daylight Savings Poem

Daylight Savings Snow

From dull morning skies,
wet snow is falling plumb
towards spring-melt currents—
geese are gathering
on rotting shore ice.

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

B3: 365 Days of Basho Splash

It's only Day 12, but Derek, on his blog, "tobikomu – 365 days of overdoing Bashō," is attempting exactly that: a Basho translation a day.

But it's more than that.

It's a translation a day of one Basho hokku, the famous frog poem.

IMHO, the worst to date:

antiquated pond
amphibian leaping in
aquatic sounding

But he knew that:

The sounds are lovely...but those words don't sound right to the English ear, unless you're a pretentious shit. Plus, they're just not accurate...

The best to date is the second attempt (followed closely by the first):

an old pond
a frog leaps in--
water's sound

But maybe the most original is this serendipitous piece:

mold pond--
frog hops through
water's sound

Why serendipitous? Because:

h/t to my son Pete, who overheard Ann and I last night talking about the first line, and he pipes up "mold pond?" Which was fortuitously misheard, really, since I'd been trying to figure out how, exactly, I might communicate the imagination I had of Basho's pond.

This is some good stuff. Not only the translations themselves, but the commentary as well. Derek is very particular about his Japanese, and it shows. Very much unlike my very free approach.

Will he be able to last all year? As one who attempted such a feat with my Thoreau blog, I know well the difficulty of doing so. In the end, I missed about a dozen days that first year (which I since have corrected, I might add).

But I for one am cheering him on.

FT11 Poem: Two Eagles Part Two

By Bartlett's Reach 3/5 Redux

Two eagles, their strong wide wings
diagonal and low to the ground,
slowly fanning the morning river
surrounds, circling and hovering just above
fish guts on shore ice.

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

FT10 Poem: Two Eagles, One River

By Bartlett’s Reach 3/5/09

Two eagles, wings
as wide as tidal currents
they’ve been crossing. One river,
waters as deep as skylight sounding
their reflection.

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

Free Tanka Number Nine Number Nine...

Momentarily

Like islands in a rising tide
or continents amid some global
warming, skeletal sheets of ice
after a cold March midnight
along this sparkling river.

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

Poem of the Glittering World

Revelations

Dragging a bright red cart
filled with rods and other gear,
a man is walking on the glittering
ice, then disappears
behind the verge of a rising island.

~Kokoro Sonzai 2009

Winter Days, animated film based on Basho's renga

Thanks to Steven at the Golden Fish, I have just discovered a film called Winter Days, an animated version based on a renga (in 36 stanzas), the hokku of which was written by Basho (as well as 6 other stanzas), each section filmed by a different director.

I'm not sure why the links aren't working at that ste, but here's a link to the first part from Youtube. Hopefully the rest will be discovered there.

Some other links of interest:

Wikipedia, where you view the entire poem in translation.
An interview with the director of the first stanza, the hokku, in which he goes into some detail.