NEW YEAR
1.
Taro-zuki
brief notes
extended
notes season page
home
a. brief notes extended notes
A yang water dragon, the new year dawns from the old
And is that
last night’s dirty-faced fellow, in fresh hat and trousers?
Now what rich girl’s bridegroom is riding by?
Allow me to
present myself,
Lazy
Tarō Month!
2. New Year’s
Decorations
brief notes
extended
notes season page
home
a.
This morning’s sun:
from the sardine’s head
it flashes
b.
Meiwa era, yang water dragon spring
Returning in morning mist:
a god wind stirs
the straw twisted rope
c. brief notes extended notes
Spring and again
they meet together at the gate
pine and bamboo
Or:
Again in spring,
greener than green they come out together
pine and bamboo
d. brief notes extended notes
At my own gate:
the pines are two
on these three dawns
e.
In the An-ei Era, year of the yin water snake
Courting stick left by
a man of undivided heart
the pine at the gate
f.
In the newly trimmed
gate pine
wind: Fukurokuju
g.
Catching a sea bream
with a grain of rice–
spring welcoming pine
h.
An-ei Era, yin wood year of the sheep, the new year dawns
Hōrai Mountain festival:
old age’s spring
3. The Seven Gods of Fortune
brief notes
extended
notes season page
home
a.
I’ll hold a festival
for the Mountain of the Immortals
an old man’s spring
b.
From the magic hammer all these, the ten thousand things, breed forth
New Year’s Day:
from the lucky mallet, newly unsealed,
the gems of spring
c.
Fresh shaved and waiting
for the wind to blow through the gate pine
Fukurokuju
d.
As the year begins:
Fukurokuju appears
flowers in the grass
e.
Crane, tortoise, and a grain of rice
to catch a sea bream;
spring awaiting pine
4. First Things
brief notes
extended
notes season page
home
a.
The year’s first water drawn
a thousand years comes through
the bamboo pipe...
b.
Spring
of the year of the boar, younger brother of greenwood,
and again to green childhood you return. The wind blowing in
the thousand-year pines conveys your long life, the enduring
auspiciousness of your dwelling. Yamato by its alphabet is the
honorable instrument conveying to Mr. Karai congratulations
on his reaching the end of sixty years. From the beginning
letter
i we borrow the meaning, i, ino,inoshishi, inoji, boar for
the
boar’s child.
In Japanese style,
a child’s letter A:
first writing of the year
c.
Sixth year of the era of Eternal Peace, year of the yin fire rooster
Just
as the Japanese musicians play at the Gion festival without
following the rhythm of classical compositions, better to shun
the
tenderness and elegant simplicity of the Bashō School on the
occasion of a spring entertainment, in order to imitate the
style
of haiku of the day’s youthful poets of the eastern provinces.
New Year dawn
-ing triumph on the face
of the haiku master
d.
From out of the dark of the year’s last night
I too have deciphered
the writing on the feather
first crow
e.
Poem for the first day of the first month
The
last light of the old year shines in the lamps of Mt. Ibuki;
the
sound of the Kamo River flowing foretells that spring is
nearly here
The striking of the shuttlecock
is the year’s first bird song
before the pillars of Utsu no Miya
f.
[Following the auspicious direction to make the year’s first shrine visit]
Setting off from a lone house:
this year’s lucky direction may take me
all the way to China
g.
Especially it shrouds
the foreigner’s mansion
first
mist
5.
Fukujusō, Pheasant’s Eye Flower
brief notes
extended
notes season page
home
a.
Celebrating
our three companions’ fortieth birthdays gives us three
ways to read the poem’s three beginnings
Year, month, day:
the three perfumes
of the New Year anemone
b.
On the year’s first day:
happiness-wealth-longevity
flowering in the grass
c.
Morning sun shafts in
the bow maker’s shop:
pheasant’s eye flowers
6. New Year Mist
brief notes
extended
notes season page
home
a.
Heaviest over
the foreign quarter
the year’s first mist
b.
First day of the year, then the next
mist gathers in the nooks
and corners of Kyoto
c.
Meiwa era, yang water dragon spring
Returning home in the morning mist:
a sacred wind
sways the straw rope
7. New Year Willows
brief notes
extended
notes season page
home
a.
At the Forbidden Palace, spring colors in the pale blue dawn
The blue-green willow:
our sovereign lord’s
tree? grass?
b.
Unmarred by even
one dead branch—
willow tree...
8. Jinjitsu, the Seventh Day, the Gathering of the
Young
Herbs, the Gathering of the Pine Seedlings
a.
On the seventh day of the new year
Setting out to gather the seven herbs:
hakama tied
in a half knot
b.
Jinjitsu
Old soldier daikon
how he despises
the young herbs
c.
A happy thing—
the seven herbs, their roots
showing white
d.
Celebrating hopes for his long life on Mr. Karai’s sixtieth birthday
This boar’s year
on the first day of the rat
seedlings
of the millennial pine
9. First Archery Ceremony
brief notes
extended
notes season page
home
The old year dawns into the new yang water dragon year
Not
yet having seen the blossoms of Yoshino, all the more I
intend,
without fail, to set eyes on them this coming spring:
The answering clouds take on
the faint look of cherry blossoms:
the year’s first arrow
SPRING
1. Parsley
a.
Today along an old road
happening on some root parsley,
leaving it behind...
b.
In “the Village of the Meadow Parsley”
amid the parsley
a blue-green willow
c.
All the path there is—
it trails off
into the parsley
d.
Old temple:
a thrown-away clay pot
amid
the parsley
2. Burning the Withered Fields
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
A field of bracken:
come, let’s set ablaze
these withered azaleas
Reading the Ten Foot-Square Hut
Blazing things
from the beggar’s fire
to the burning fields...
c.
The field
and Jizō’s anise branches
burning together...
d.
As the eastern sky lightens,
small rain begins to fall
on the burned field...
e.
Daybreak and rain:
the blackened tips
of
a field of silvergrass...
3. Mugwort
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Just out the temple’s back gate
encountering
new
spouted sage
4. Tree Grafting
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
As they work,
they talk of things across the hedge—
tree grafting...
b.
Beside the field of yellow flowers
the tree grafter has left
his
pipe behind
5. Bracken
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
How good the bracken field
once the withered azaleas
are burned away
b.
Bracken fronds left
broken and wilting
in the slow dusk
6. Pine Tree Pollen
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Joss stick’s
ash; a pine tree sheds
its pollen
7. Spring Grass
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Through spring grass
the path divides in three: one is a shortcut
inviting me home
Coming home—
how many paths
through the spring grass!
c.
In new sprouted grass
the willow tree
its roots forgotten
8. Kerria
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Kakuya Tachihaki no
Osa was an unparalleled aesthete. While
remembering how he and
the monk of Kosobe pursued elegance,
upon their first
meeting, by drawing their treasures from their
brocade pouches, and
as I am spurred on ceaselessly by the
beauty of spring:
Mountain roses:
on the waters of the Ide are flowing
shavings from the carpenter’s plane
9. Young Sweetfish
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
A young sweetfish swims upstream,
a blade of bamboo grass from the valley
floating by
b.
Scooping up sweetfish
all day, all day the crags
alive
with wings
10. Spring Grows Deep
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Where iris leaves rise up
is that a pond?
spring grown five feet deep
11. Pear Blossoms
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
The whole long day
whitely blooming
pear blossoms
b.
Someone lingers under
the trees of the pear garden
the hazy moon
c.
Under the blossoming pear
there is a woman
reading a letter by moonlight
d.
A cloud just beginning to form
on Mt. Tortoise Shell:
pear blossoms
1. Lily
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
Bending with dew toward
the red inkstone—
lily flower
b.
For a moment, the early lily
kept alive in the monk’s cell
at the valley temple
2. Poppy
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
A poppy blooming—
would the woven fence
were not there...
b.
For them also the monk
strikes the vesper bell:
poppy flowers
Or:
They enter each other:
the temple bell at evening,
poppy flowers
Leaving Mount Shumi...
poppy flower
3. Orange Blossoms
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
Scent of orange blossom:
long ago, a high ranking general
was lord of this manor
b.
Orange blossoms’
perfume: in the dawn twilight,
a ruined mansion
4. Wild Roses
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
After the breath-of-the-mountain,
after the rabbit flower:
briar rose
b.
Lost in sad thought
while climbing the hill:
wild roses brief notes extended notes
c.
Climbing that eastern slope:
Briar roses
blooming on the path, just as they did
in
the village of my childhood
d.
As the path dies out
the scent of flowering thorn
closes in...
5. Gardenia
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
The way cape jasmine
blooms in hiding,
a stranger to the sun
6. Citron Flowers
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
The scent of citron flowers:
how mysterious the manor house’s
corner shrine
b.
Scent of citron flowers:
a fine sake is hidden
behind
these walls
7. Persimmon Flowers
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
It has become “The Village
of Falling Sour
Persimmon Flowers
Insect eaten
falling
persimmon flowers
c.
Under the tree
persimmon flowers falling
evening...
d.
Persimmon flowers
the ones that fell yesterday
look yellowed
8.
Spatterdock
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
Spatterdock
two clumps blooming
in the rain
9. Chinquapin Flowers
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
Personal grievance:
No one comes to praise
the chinquapin’s blossoms,
that fragrance...
10. Noon Faces, Flowering Bindweed
brief notes
extended notes
season page home
a.
Flowering bindweed
after the violet,
just as dear
b.
Noon faces:
a garland for the head
of the heat-sick cow
c.
Noon faces:
thirty leagues of this road
in the Chinese measure
d.
Bindweed flowers:
as the posts marking the miles to town
become the town
11. Crape Myrtle
brief notes
extended notes
season
page home
a.
So gradually the crape myrtle’s
red flowers fall
at Komachi Temple
12. Silk Tree
brief notes
extended notes
season
page home
a. [River fish]
They will by the graceful
silk tree’s undershadows
be netted up
b.
The serpent’s snoring also heard
under the silk tree’s
leaf shade...
c.
In grief for Torao, so early vanished from this world
Day of rain:
in the early falling evening
silk flowers bloom
AUTUMN
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
1. Otokoeshi
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
All the more unsteady
in the dew-laden air:
man flower
2. Morning Glories
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
The valley stream pools into indigo
Morning glory:
deep in each corolla,
color of the abyss
Morning glory:
the indigo border of the hand towel
now so disappointing
c.
“Hey, Koremitsu!”
A snore amid
the morning glories...
d.
Morning glories:
also going to fruit, morning by morning,
one by one
3. Rose of Sharon
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
In slight acquaintance with the
morning glory:
rose of Sharon...
b.
The paulownia tree’s leaves
fall away and become
rose mallow blooming
c.
At the Office of Repairs
in rain the twilight falls:
rose-of-Sharon...
d.
Court lady
Cotton rose
resentfully it withers
with the waning sun
e.
This evening no one there to see
how the althea uses up its
last few flowers...
4. Cockscomb Flower
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Cockscomb flower
red with shame
permanently
b.
A broom
leaning harmoniously against
a stalk of cockscomb...
c.
After the brocade tree’s been
brought down by the autumn wind
cockscomb flower
d.
What the autumn wind
left behind:
cockscomb flowers
e.
Imagine! how I’ll scatter
the
cockscomb’s seeds...
5.
Reeds
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Wind through the reeds
noisy as
a careless man...
b.
Gathering
beach reeds: waves
for a desk edge
c.
Rites for the dead
Around the emerging crests
of reeds, miscanthus
halos of light
d.
Reed flowers;
from the old fisherman’s hut
smoke
flies up
6. Spider Lilies
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
From among the orchid-like
spider lilies
a fox barks
7. Orchids
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Orchid evening:
I’ll burn aloeswood
as an offering to the foxes
b.
This orchid
was blooming in Gosuke’s garden
just yesterday
c.
Night orchid
in perfume hiding
its flower’s white
d.
Scent of an orchid:
from the shadows of the
thicket of chrysanthemums
8. Chinese Bellflowers
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Bellflowers seen
in the flower shop,
the household shrine
b.
Along the ascetic’s
narrow path: beloved
bell flowers...
9. Gentians
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Gentians:
the spaces between the dead leaves have become
purple blooming
10. Ivy
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Dust devil eddies through:
every ivy leaf shows its
pale
back...
11. Tattered Lotus
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
In this case indeed
being a gentleman does not save him—
tattered lotus
1. Rock Butterbur Flower
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
It blooms although
all unlooked for,
the rock butterbur flower
2. Tea Flowers
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
I choose a path
that circles round a stone:
tea flowers
b.
Tea flowers:
as I leave out the back gate,
a tofu peddler’s cry
c.
Along the road lined with tea flowers
I’ll see you off as
far as Keage
d.
Tea flowers:
can’t say if they’re
white or yellow
e.
The last sunlight
kindles a faint yellow
in the tea blossoms...
f.
Even to the tea flowers in the moonlight,
indifferent—
winter
seclusion
3. Winter Chrysanthemums
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Winter chrysanthemums
so intent on budding—
when will they reach full bloom?
b.
Deadheading the winter chrysanthemums–
how easily they
snap off
c.
Winter chrysanthemums:
the sun shines on a corner
of a remote country village
d.
Winter chrysanthemums,
how artlessly they bloom
at
the foot of the hedge...
4. Daikon
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Grow a beard
to show your warrior’s prowess—
white radish
b.
The
giant radishes of Tsukushi’s constable of the peace
transformed
into warriors and fought back the enemy. Priest Jōshin’s
potato
heads were likewise not without miraculous properties.
Armed with white radish
he fights on—
warrior priest
5. Winter Withering
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Winter withering–
the crow is black,
the heron white
b.
Winter withering:
a single bird takes shelter
among the leeks
6. Loquat Flowers
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Loquat flowers:
not even birds to attend to them
as the sun sets
7. Winter Peony
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Not even a butterfly
comes to buy its dream—
winter peony
b.
In Praise of Tōkōkei:
Prime minister of the mountains,
a peony in the snow...
8.
Winter Cherry
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
From a single branch
flying petals, falling leaves:
winter blooming cherry
9. Narcissus
brief
notes extended
notes season
page home
a.
Narcissus:
the shrike’s grass
stems have blossomed
b.
Godless Month:
show to Munetō
narcissus blooming
c.
Narcissus:
a beautiful woman
her head bowed in pain
d.
An offering of narcissus
at the flower shop’s
family shrine
In the chilly capital
here and there
narcissus blooming
f.
Among the narcissus flowers
foxes are at play:
a
moonlit evening
brief notes
extended note
© 2014 Amy
England, rights reserved