tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara
is as the morning dew
yes... but...
—Issa
(trans. David LaSpina[1])
Most of the haiku Issa wrote were playful, usually poking fun at himself. But not all were. He wrote this to mourn the death of his daughter Sato.
Buddhism tells us that life is fleeting, as the cherry blossoms or as drops of dew on the morning grass. Things come and go as quickly as a stream of water passes by, and we should avoid attachment since nothing is here more than a moment. As a strict student of Buddhism, Issa knows this. But... his child...
He wrote his his diary:
I knew that it was no use to cry, that water once flown past the bridge does not return and scattered blossoms are gone beyond recall. Yet try as I would, I could not, simply cut the binding cord of human love.
It is a reworking of one he wrote on one year anniversary of the death of his first son, Kentaro.
tsuyu no yo wa tokushin nagara sari nagara
truly it is...
but...
It's amazing he was able to keep such an innocent and gleeful attitude in most of his haiku when he was surrounded by such tragedy.
The kigo here is tsuyu, dew or dewdrop. As the morning dew vanishes with the sun, it has been a symbol for our fleeting lives in Japanese poetry since ancient times. It is a kigo for all of autumn.
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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
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