The Spring of My Life Read online

  Issa’s poems reveal a deep engagement with the teachings of Zen, as well as with the Way of Haiku advocated by Bashō, and it is probably for these strengths of character, including his unabashed honesty, that he was admired by almost everyone regardless of social rank.

  Japan has a long history of revering its poets—posthumously for the most part. There are many “Issa sites” and “haiku stones” with his poems engraved for posterity; his old homestead in Kashiwabara has been preserved. And, thanks to his only surviving child, his lineage continues.

  In translating Issa’s poems, I have held in my ear the sound of the original, the assonance and consonance, rhyme and slant rhyme that provides the foundation of the music of the original. Haiku grew out of the 5–7–5–7–7 syllabic structure of waka (later called tanka), which means simply “Japanese poem.” Sounded out in the original, the “song” of haiku often includes a pregnant pause created by use of a “cutting word” (kakekotoba). Haiku was the first Japanese poetry (except that in the folk song tradition) to be written in the vernacular rather than in the highly refined language of the court. With its roots in the lyric tradition, it is meant to be heard.

  Much of what passes for haiku, or the translation of haiku in American English, is not really either. Issa’s poems have often been reduced to fragmentary English bearing little resemblance to the music, meaning or syntax of the original. I have sometimes made use of interpolation to fill out the music of these translations (American English tends to use fewer syllables than Japanese). But I have not made a Procrustean bed of syllabic structure. Sometimes a variation of a syllable or two suffices, especially when a long or heavy syllable is involved or when there is a sustained pause. My primary concern is to say what the poet says without rearranging the original order of perception.

  Most of these poems are translated from Issa Haikaishu (Iwanami Shoten, 1990); others come from various sources, all checked for accuracy against the standard scholarly “complete works” Issa Zenshu (Shinamo Mainichi Shimbun-sha). Special thanks are due to my friend Keida Yusuke for his tireless efforts in helping “Obaka-san” bring the Japanese into Romaji (transliterated Japanese) and for his close reading of and helpful commentary on my translations. His generosity is evident on nearly every page. Nine bows.

  SAM HAMILL

  Kage-an, 1995–96

  The Spring of My Life

  ONE

  Long ago, in Fuko Temple in Tango Province, there was a devout priest who made up his mind to celebrate New Year’s Day to the fullest. So he wrote a letter on New Year’s Eve, gave it to his novice with instructions to deliver it to him first thing the following morning, and sent him off to spend the night in the main hall.

  With first light and the first crow caws, the novice rose in the long shadows and went to knock at the priest’s door. He heard the priest’s voice from deep within, asking who was calling. “A messenger,” he replied, “sent from Amida, Buddha of the Pure Land, bearing seasonal greetings.”

  The door was thrust open and the still barefoot priest motioned his novice to take the seat of honor. He grabbed the letter and opened it quickly, reading aloud, “Give up the world of suffering! Come to the Pure Land. I will meet you along the way with a host of bodhisattvas!”

  Tears rolled down the old priest’s cheeks until they soaked his sleeves.

  This story may at a glance seem terribly strange. After all, who would want to celebrate New Year’s Day in sleeves soaked with tears, tears that were self-induced? Nevertheless, the priest’s way was righteous: his principle duty was to bring the Buddha’s teaching to this world. What better way to celebrate New Year’s Day?

  Still clothed in the dust of this suffering world, I celebrate the first day in my own way. And yet I am like the priest, for I too shun trite popular seasonal congratulations. The commonplace “crane” and “tortoise” echo like empty words, like the actors who come begging on New Year’s Eve with empty wishes for prosperity. The customary New Year pine will not stand beside my door. I won’t even sweep my dusty house, living as I do in a tiny hermitage constantly threatening to collapse under harsh north winds. I leave it all to the Buddha, as in the ancient story.

  The way ahead may be dangerous, steep as snowy trails winding through high mountains. Nevertheless I welcome the New Year just as I am.

  New Year greeting-time:

  I feel about average

  welcoming my spring

  Although she was born only last May, I gave my little daughter a bowl of soup and a whole rice cake for New Year’s breakfast, saying:

  Laughing, crawling, you’re

  exploring—already two1

  years old this morning

  NEW YEAR’S DAY, 1819

  No servant to draw wakamizu, New Year’s “first water,”

  But look: Deputy

  Crow arrives to enjoy

  the first New Year’s bath

  Springtime beside a lake:

  Under such a calm

  spring moon, even the tortoise

  crows this season?

  As if from the gods,

  spring moonlight illuminates

  the hillside flower thief

  Entering Zenkō Temple on a festival day:

  A gray pussy willow

  sold as a Buddha flower—

  proud among colors

  This old cherry tree

  was loved famously when it

  was—ah—so young

  Full cherry blossoms—

  his old hip tentative under

  tucked-up kimono

  Written to celebrate Inari, the mythical trickster fox, on his festival day:

  From among the flowers,

  indifferent to the world,

  foxes bark and cry

  Second day, second month—

  burning moxa with the cat,

  quietly at home2

  Emerging brightly,

  beautifully from the bushes,

  a new butterfly!

  Ueno Hill in the distance:

  Above the blather,

  those broad walls remain at ease,

  white in misty air

  All the garden this

  poor house can afford: one plot

  of budding green rice

  In cherry blossom

  shadows, no one, really, is

  a stranger now

  Written on Buddha’s Death Day [March 15, 1819]:

  Aloof and silent

  like the Buddha, I lie still—

  still troubled by flowers

  Even as he sleeps,

  Buddha smilingly accepts

  flowers and money

  Full of play, the kitten

  climbs up on the scale

  to weigh itself

  Along the Tama River:

  Dyers’ white cloth strips

  luff in the breeze, brightening

  the white mists of spring

  TWO

  On a beautiful spring morning, a young monk-in-training named Takamaru, still a child at eleven, left Myōsen Temple with a big monk named Kanryō. They planned to pick herbs and flowers in Araizaka, but the boy slipped on an old bridge and plunged into the icy, roaring river, which was swollen with snowmelt and runoff from Iizuna Mountain.

  Hearing the boy’s screams for help, Kanryō dashed down the bank, but there was nothing he could do. Takamaru’s head bobbed up, then disappeared. A hand rose above the raging water. But soon his cries grew as faint as the high buzz of mosquitoes, and the young monk vanished in the river, nothing left but his image engraved forever on Kanryō’s eyes.

  On into the evening, torches flared along the bank as people searched for Takamaru. Finally, he was found, his body wedged between boulders, too late for anyone to help.

  When someone found a handful of young butterburs in the dead boy’s pocket, probably a gift for his parents, even those who seldom weep began to soak their sleeves. They lifted his body onto a bamboo palanquin and carried him home.

&nb
sp; It was late evening when his parents ran out to see his body, their bitter tears observed by everyone. True, as followers of the Way, they had always preached transcendence of this life’s miseries, but who could act otherwise? Their all-too-human hearts were shattered by undying love for their child. When the boy had left at dawn, he had been alive and laughing.

  The young monk lay still and cold in the evening. Two days later, joining the funeral procession at his cremation, I wrote this tanka:

  Not once did I think

  I’d throw these fresh spring blossoms

  into this dense smoke

  and stand back to watch it rise

  and vanish into the sky.

  As much as Takamaru’s parents, flowers too must weep to know they may be hacked down and burned on any day just as they open their faces to warm spring sun after months of winter snow. Don’t flowers have a life? Won’t they, as much as we, realize nirvana in the end?

  During meditation:

  He glares back at me

  with an ugly, surly face,

  this old pond frog

  A bright moon lights

  the plum blossoms. Am I

  also tempted to steal them?

  High over the dark

  shadows of Pine Islands, a

  skylark breaks into song

  Teasingly, the big cat

  wags its long tail, toying with

  a small butterfly

  Written in Hoshina village on a spring Kannon3 festival day:

  Wind-strewn blossoms—

  Buddha gathers secret coins

  in a shady nook

  The gentle willow,

  pliant as a woman, tempts me

  into the garden

  Belly full of rice cake,

  to digest, I go out and

  graft another tree

  THREE

  Several people told me a story about some folks who heard heavenly music at two in the morning on New Year’s Day. Furthermore, they all said, these people have heard it again every eighth day since. They described exactly when and where each hearing occurred.

  Some people laughed it off as the trickeries of the wind, but I was reluctant to accept or dismiss the story without evidence. Heaven and earth are home to many mysteries. We all know the stories of dancing girls who pour the morning dew from high above. Perhaps the spirits who observe from the corridors of the heavens, seeing a peaceful world, called for music to rejoice. And perhaps we who failed to hear it were deafened by our own suffering.

  I invited a few friends to visit my hermitage the morning of March 19th, and we spent the whole night listening. By the time first light broke in the east, we’d heard nothing. Then, suddenly, we heard singing from the plum tree outside a window.

  Just a bush warbler

  to sing morning Lotus Sutra

  to this suffering world

  Wanting to welcome

  the visiting bush warbler,

  I swept the garden

  In falling spring rain

  the innkeeper assigns rooms,

  even to the horse

  O little sparrows!

  Mind your place! Be careful there!

  Lord Horse passes through!

  In hazy spring mist,

  sitting inside the great hall,

  not a hint of sound

  Horses pass by, each

  with its rider—and behind them,

  the skylarks follow

  At Shimabara, Kyoto:

  The friendly barker calls—

  even the willow’s tempted,

  bending to a geisha

  This rural village

  overrun with bamboo shrub—

  lucky to see plum

  With laughter all day

  and nighttime’s moons and flowers—

  happy new year tides

  Countless tea houses

  and blossoming cherries all

  flower overnight

  Hakuhi wrote:

  The cherry blossoms

  are truly cherry blossoms

  only while we wait

  I mark passing time

  beating straw to weave beneath

  this cool summer moon

  Composed on Buddha’s Birthday anniversary [April 8, 1819]:

  Sweet tea and sweet tears

  flow wetly over Buddha

  through the whole spring day

  It must certainly

  be a holiday today

  even for the rain

  After an illness:

  I, too, made of dust—

  thin and light as the paper

  mosquito curtain

  With a splish! a splat!

  a few raindrops splash down:

  rainy season’s done

  On the street corner

  the blind musician dances,

  fan held high overhead

  Playing together,

  these little baby sparrows

  among bamboo shoots

  Now the rains have gone,

  two neighboring houses

  enjoy spring cleaning

  On a high, narrow suspension bridge of vine, looking down into a deep valley:

  On hands and knees on

  a shaky bridge: a cuckoo

  cries far below

  Summer’s first melon

  lies firmly hugged to the breast

  of a sleeping child

  From Ningyō-chō—“Doll Street”—in Edo [Tokyo]:

  I thank the doll that serves

  my tea, and sit, enjoying

  the summer evening breeze

  How fortunate! I’m not

  punished for dozing behind

  the mosquito net

  Only just a few

  mosquitoes buzzing about—

  old people’s season!

  Hurry now, my flies!

  You too may share the riches

  of this fine harvest

  The small shrine stands

  alone, almost lost among

  saxifrage blossoms

  The quiet life:

  Bending, stretching out,

  the little worm inches along

  my foundation wall

  A poem expressing sympathy for a woman recently widowed and who must now make do for herself:

  Where will you wander

  in your straw hat once this village

  rice is planted?

  Sing hosanna! What

  a beautiful bamboo has

  sprouted overnight!

  Fan tucked politely

  under her collar: hands busy

  picking flowers

  Buzzing noisily

  by my ear, the mosquito

  must know I’m old

  Togakure Mountain poems:

  Clear icy water

  races straight down the mountain

  and into my tub

  Whose small hermitage

  lies just beyond this spring so

  overgrown with moss?

  One small mosquito

  bites hard, again and again,

  attacking in silence

  Passing through the gate,

  watch your head: you’re enjoying

  a summer yukata4

  Lacking a thresher,

  I beat the summer wheat

  against my house

  Poem for a woman peddler in Echigo:

  After wheat harvest,

  infant on her back, she cries,

  “Sardines! Sardines!”

  A cut bamboo sprout—

  were it not for hungry men

  it would have blossomed

  A little shady

  spot of grass in summertime—

  sanctuary

  Even this mountain

  moss grows flowers all its own—

  thus nature bestows

  One small mosquito

  larva has climbed to where

  the new moon shines

  Composed at the home of my friend Dokurakubō:

  Whi
te saxifrage flowers

  all around my bedroom bring

  me lasting light

  In the old temple,

  even the snake has shed

  his worldly skin

  FOUR

  I finally decided to visit the far north country, thinking it would be good for my haiku.5 When I’d filled my pack and shouldered it over my monk’s robe, and slipped my beggar’s bag around my neck, I was astonished to see that my shadow looked exactly like the image of the eminent recluse and Zen poet Saigyō [1118—1190]. This observation shamed me when I thought how different his mind from mine: he was fresh, pure, and white as snow, whereas my mind is still dark and windblown as my sleeves.

  I departed my old hermitage April 16th, walking stick in hand, but traveled only a few miles when I suddenly realized that I am almost sixty. Like the moon sinking in the western mountains, my life too approaches its final hours.