I had started to research and drafted a post for this prompt but that was two days ago and pfffft, I lost it all. Returning to the drawing board, I found a poem by Issa Kobayashi who I truly love his work. His last line in haiku often end with a nice surprise and sometimes with a bit of humour. I am sharing some of his bio here that I found at the Poetry Foundation:
”
Kobayashi Issa
1763–1828
Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa, also known as Kobayashi Yataro and Kobayashi Nobuyuki, was born in Kashiwabara, Shinanao province. He eventually took the pen name Issa, which means “cup of tea” or, according to poet Robert Hass, “a single bubble in steeping tea.”
Issa’s father was a farmer. His mother died when he was young, and he was raised by his grandmother. His father remarried, and Issa did not get along well with his stepmother or stepbrother, eventually becoming involved in disputes over his father’s property. When Issa was 14, he left home to study haiku in Edo. He spent years traveling and working until returning to Kashiwabara in the early 1810s. In Kashiwabara, his life was marked by sorrow— the death of his first wife and three children, an unsuccessful second marriage, the burning down of his house, and a third marriage.
Issa’s haiku are as attentive to the small creatures of the world—mosquitoes, bats, cats—as they are tinged with sorrow and an awareness of the nuances of human behavior. In addition to haiku, Issa wrote pieces that intertwined prose and poetry, including Journal of My Father’s Last Days and The Year of My Life.”
The moon in August is sometimes called the Corn Moon or Cold Moon. Now this time of year when referring to the full moon, however, in Japan, they are referring to the autumn moon or harvest moon which I prefer to write about in September. I am really not ready to write that much about autumn…yet.
I remember travelling by car or by bus marveling at the full moon. It is sometimes on my left side and then my right side depending where I am driving and how many twists and curves I have taken. But when I am driving home alone late at night, somehow I don’t feel so alone. It is almost a sordid affair…like the man on the moon is keeping me company and only he and I exist until I get home.
This is in response to Suzanne’s On The Road prompt this week here , Chasing Butterflies where she is gives us a beautiful history of Sugita Hisajo who was born in 1890, a poetess who was not recognized until many years later.
Suzanne gives us this haiku to inspire us:
chasing butterflies
deep into spring mountains
I have become lost
– Hisajo
Now I am known to write many poems on butterflies especially since my mother passed in 2014 but this particular haiku spoke to me about going down a spiritual path and hopefully one day reaching harmony and clarity.
(Troiku)
buzzing fills the air sweet nectar beckons yielding the harvest
buzzing fills the air
got to dazed and confused
drifting roundabout
sweet nectar beckons
seeking that perfect balance
but scents lure her
buzzing fills the air
season rewards with benefits
balancing nature
Suzanne has asked us to write about the Road to the Holy Grail, and quotes from “Reflections on the Art of Living” edited by Diane K Osbon:
“What the Holy Grail symbolizes is the highest spiritual fulfillment of a human life. Each life has some kind of high fulfillment, and each has its own gift from the Grail… It has to do with overcoming the same temptations that the Buddha overcame; of attachment to this, that or the other life detail that has pulled you off course… In the Grail legends, the land of people doing what they think they ought to do or have to do is the wasteland.”
I am not sure if I have interpreted this well but have tried interpreting a journey to engulfment.
***
So much time seems to be wasted when we all seem to think that time is plentiful. Is it? Really? In the past decade, she has returned to her path of spirituality. Usually strife and hopelessness draws her there and in time, she feels at peace. She is astounded at how often she rereads a passage of wisdom and spiritual growth twenty to thirty years later as if it were the very first time. What does that mean?
There are times when she was in her early twenty’s she may have digested words intellectually rather than emotionally. That is the only answer that makes sense to her. Life happens and too many times attachment to things and persons cloud our vision but the path is always there, waiting, forgiving and embracing.
Nothing can be rushed…it is not like spring cleaning with a power wash but letting yourself go and be. Emptying your mind and allowing to be filled with light.
meditating visions of white doves inviting her home
From On the Road, Suzanne has chosen the following quote to inspire us to write in our favoured waka form.
“As we turn every corner of the Narrow Road to the Deep North, we sometimes stand up unawares to applaud and we sometimes fall flat to resist the agonizing pains we feel in the depths of our hearts. There are also times when we feel like taking to the roads ourselves, seizing the raincoat lying near by, or times when we feel like sitting down till our legs take root, enjoying the scene we picture before our eyes.” – Soruyo
Thinking back when her children were little and stress had a way of creeping into the household. So often she would pack up a blanket, a healthy lunch and off they walked (her son biked) and she pushed the stroller for the younger one to the fort by the rapids. It was a mile to get there or 1.6km and if the children had behaved, they would walk to the wading pool half a mile away and maybe get a sundae at MacDonald’s across the street. The road taken then was to “stay above float” and it happened to make everyone content.
Sometimes, at the end of the day when the children’s father returned from work, they would plan a family bike outing, but before, she would take a “mommy run” to check on her bike she would say. What she actually did was ride very fast, wind blowing in her face, removing the “dust of her day” and by the time she was by the rapids, she was cleansed and became a person. She was not a mother, a wife, a daughter, a woman, a friend, a volunteer, a counsellor…she was one simple person.
roar of the rapids inhaling every woe announcing hope water splashing at her feet droplets giggle with joy
Once the stress of the day had dissipated into the current, washed away and moving on to the basin of the river, she felt lighter. Her shoulders rose naturally and she sat with her spine straight without a thought in the world…no dreams were necessary…
rolling white caps just sitting – not wanting contentment infused
Tournesol dans un Jardin 