Autumn dusk (aki no kure)

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Autumn dusk (aki no kure)

***** Location: Japan, worldwide
***** Season: All Autumn
***** Category: Season

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Explanation



© PHOTO Gabi Greve, October 2007


autumn dusk, autumn twilight,
aki no kure 秋の暮 (あきのくれ)
autumn nightfall, autumn evening, autumn eve

"aki no kure" might also refer to the end of autumn.
SEE
Autumn coming to an end
But this is usually expressed in the opposite wording
kure no aki, the twilight of autumn itself, 暮の秋(くれのあき)


evening dusk in autumn, aki no yuugure
秋の夕暮（あきのゆうぐれ）
..... aki no yuube 、秋の夕（あきのゆうべ）
autumn evening, shuuseki 秋夕（しゅうせき）

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"Autumn means sunset (dusk)" (aki wa yuugure)
is a famous statement in the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (Sei Shoonagon 清少納言, Makura Sooshi 枕草子).　It has long been loved by Japanese poets and together with the SPRING DAWN (haru no akebono) been the subject of many poems.

In autumn, it is still warm enough to be outside and enjoy the passing of the time, watch the valley change from light to shadow, the colors of the sky and the soft clouds constantly changing.

In the times of Basho this kigo was used to express feelings of "the sadness of things" (mono no aware) and solitude or melancholy (sabishisa).



Twilight, dusk ... and many related kigo 　



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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way

Miyamoto Musashi (宮本 武蔵) (c.1584 - 1645)


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HAIKU


Miyamoto Musashi
枯木鳴鵙図 宮本武蔵筆

Matsuo Basho and his famous haiku in translations

枯朶に烏のとまりけり秋の暮
枯れ枝に鴉のとまりけり　秋の暮
（かれえだにからすのとまりけりあきのくれ）

kara eda ni karasu no tomari keri aki no kure

A crow
has settled on a bare branch
Autumn evening


On a withered branch,
A crow has stopped
Autumn's eve


A lone crow
sits on a dead branch
this autumn eve

Read more about Basho and some Crow Haiku.
http://www.shades-of-night.com/aviary/haiku.html


..................... More translations:

On a withered branch
a crow is perched:
an autumn evening.

... bopsecrets


a crow is perched on a bare branch;
it is an autumn eve.

Classic Haiku: An Anthology of Poems by Basho and His Followers


On dead branches
Crows remain perched
At autumn's end.

... www.tapsns.com


On a dead limb
squats a crow.
Autumn night.

... www.cs.arizona.edu


on a bare branch
a crow perches
in the autumn twilight

... http://www.ecf.or.jp/shiki/1999/dec5.html


................. One more interpretation

First Basho realized that it was an autumn evening. Then he saw the crow on a bare branch.
The order of events is not:
First he saw a crow on a branch, then he remembered it was autumn.

a crow is perched
on a barren branch -
this autumn evening

Tr. Gabi Greve

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"Expressing how I feel"

この道や行く人なしに秋の暮れ
kono michi ya yuku hito nashi ni aki no kure

on this road
where nobody else travels
autumn nightfall

and an earlier version

The road here--
No traveler comes along
This autumn evening.

Matsuo Basho . Tr. Makoto Ueda


. . . . More translations

Along this road
Goes no one;
This autumn evening.

An autumn eve;
Along this road
Goes no-one.


No-one
Walks this road;
Autumn evening.


Along this autumn road
Goes no-one,
This autumn eve.
R.H. Blyth


By lonely roads
this lonely poet marches
into autumn dusk.
Beilenson


this road--
with no one on it,
autumn dusk
Barnhill


This road--
no one goes down it,
autumn evening.
Robert Hass


This road:
with no one traveling on it,
autumn darkness falls.
Harold Henderson


None is traveling
Here along this way but I,
This autumn evening.
Kenneth Yasuda


This road ––
no one goes down
autumns end.
Tr. Peipei Qiu


All along this road
not a single soul—only
autumn evening
[The Essential Basho,
Sam Hamill, Boston: Shambhala, 1998]


Not one traveller
braves this road -
autumn night.
Stryck

on this road
no one is seen to travel...
autumn's end
Susumu Takiguchi : "Go-Schichi-Go"


Along this way
No travellers -
Dusk in autumn
Alex Kerr - "Lost Japan" - 1996


This road
No travelers pass along--
Autumn dusk.
T.Saito, W.R.Nelson - "1020 Haiku in Translation" -2006


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Haruo Shirane:
"Traces of Dreams" - Stanford University Press, 1998

"In the late autumn of 1694 (...), at the end of his life, Basho wrote the following hokku, which appears in Backpack Diary (Oi nikki; 1695).

this road--
no one goes down it
autumn's end

kono / michi / ya / yuku / hito / nashi / ni / aki / no / kure
this / road / : /go / person / none / as / autumn / 's / end

This hokku, which was composed at a large haikai gathering, can be read as a straightforward description of the scene before the poet, as an expression of disappointment that, at the end of his life, in the autumn of his career - "aki no kure" can mean either "autumn's end" or "autumn evening" - he is alone, or that life is lonely, and as an expression of disappointment at the lack of sympathetic poetic partners (renju), that is, as an expression of desire for those who can engage in the poetic dialogue necessary to continue on this difficult journey.

Significantly, on Basho's last journey in the summer of 1694, from Edo to Iga, he deliberately stopped at Nagoya, to try to heal the breach with his former poetry companions, those surrounding Kakei, and then he departed for Osaka, where he would die, in attempt to mediate a territorial dispute between two disciples, Shado and Shido."

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. . . . Look at a painting HERE
MICHI, Road, by Higashiyama Kaii




Special Thanks to Larry Bole for bringing
Higashiyama Kaii and Basho together!



MORE - hokku about aki no kure by
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .


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. WKD : Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 .


一つなくは親なし鳥よ秋の暮
hitotsu naku wa oya nashi tori yo aki no kure

alone he cries
the motherless bird...
autumn dusk


我植し松も老けり秋の暮
waga ueshi matsu mo oi keri aki no kure

even the pine tree
I planted grows old!
autumn dusk


又人にかけ抜れけり秋の暮
mata hito ni kakenukare keri aki no kure

yet another traveler
overtakes me...
autumn dusk

Read many more here:
Tr. David Lanoue


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朝顔の生れ替りや秋の暮
asagao no umare-kawari ya aki no kure

autumn twilight --
morning glories
reborn
Tr. Chris Drake

This mid-autumn hokku is from the 8th month (Sept.) of 1814, when Issa was on a trip to Edo, his first trip back after establishing himself in his hometown. His main purpose was to formally say goodbye to poet friends and students there. The hokku was probably written on 8/9 (Sept. 22), since in Issa's diary it occurs only two hokku after his bittersweet hokku about returning to the city where he painfully grew to maturity:

江戸へエドへ出れば秋の暮

Edo! Edo!
when I'm here it's just edo --
autumn twilight
Tr. Chris Drake

Though the city brings back many memories of suffering, the sky probably seems larger in Edo than in Issa's hometown, since there are no high mountains to block the sky on the horizon, and Issa seems to have been very moved by the sky on his first evening back in the city. In the Edo/Tokyo area, morning glories usually bloom until around the end of October, a month after this hokku was written, so there are no doubt many morning glories still in bloom.

By "rebirth" Issa must be referring to the daily rhythm of morning glories, which close or "die" for the day by around noon. At day's end, however, the shriveled morning glories seem to be reborn in the clear autumn sky, which opens gradually, as if it were a great flower, turning to very deep blue, then blue-purple, and then violet -- all common morning glory colors.

The image of the early evening sky becoming a great, reborn morning glory suggests that Issa himself feels a kind of rebirth going on in his relationships with people in and around Edo, many of which he wants to revive and keep alive even after moving to his hometown. If the hokku is taken as overtly self-referential and symbolic, perhaps Issa is also suggesting that the early morning-glory part of his life is gone forever but that now, at fifty-two and approaching the twilight of his life, he feels he will be reborn with a new, more autobiographical kind of blooming or style of haikai as he moves back and forth between country and city.

Chris Drake


なかなかに人と生れて秋の暮
naka-naka ni hito to umarete aki no kure

born human,
I'm able to feel it --
autumn twilight

This hokku is from the 1811 Waga haru-shū or My Year's Collection hokku anthology. It also appears in six other collections. The slightly elliptical hokku begins with a suggestive expression used in classical waka and also in a famous hokku by Buson that he might be alluding to:

because I'm alone
I'm able to make friends
with the moon

nakanaka ni hitori areba zo tsuki o tomo

You might think that being alone on the night of a full moon is not desirable, Buson suggests, but it's precisely because I'm alone that I've been able to become intimate with the moon. While stressing the value of aloneness, Buson also admits that he is human and often feels loneliness. In Issa's hokku the image is even more wide-ranging. He seems to be referring to himself, but in Japanese the hokku can also refer to all humans. Speaking only of Issa, however, the hokku suggests that if he had not been born as a human the autumn twilight surrounding him would be quite different, since it would not have any overall meaning beyond immediate physical sensations. Because he is human, the autumn dusk enables him to deeply feel the fragility of all beauty and relationships, for example, and the pathos of all things as they pass away as well as the nostalgia that their disappearance occasions.

I think Issa, like Buson, is also referring to the other side of what he experiences: sometimes autumn twilight makes him feel simply lonely and discouraged after a day of struggling to make ends meet or failing get a decent meal. If he were a bird or a ground animal, he could just continue on, following his instincts, and not worry in detail about the future or about various relationships, but he does worry, and worry teaches him things. Issa is glad he was born a human, and he seems to affirm that for him autumn twilights may sometimes be disheartening, but all are vitally important and help him learn what it means to be a human person.

Chris Drake


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autumn dusk
the sound of rooks gathering
in an old oak

　©　Morden Haiku

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autumn dusk
only a crow outside
my window

　©　Deborah P Kolodji / Falling Leaves 2006

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Related words

***** Autumn (aki) and related KIGO
autumn night

***** Seasons coming to an end

***** Loneliness (sabishisa)

***** . Autumn Melancholy



© PHOTO Gabi Greve, Autumn 2006

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Robin, the Bird

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Robin

***** Location: Europe, America
***** Season: Various, see below.
***** Category: Animal

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Explanation


The American Robin (Turdus migratorius) is a migratory songbird of the thrush family.
kigo for spring

quote
The American Robin is the state bird of Connecticut, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
It was also depicted on the 1986 Birds of Canada series Canadian $2 note, but this note has since been withdrawn. Robin's egg blue is a color named after the bird's eggs.

The Tlingit people of Northwestern North America held it to be a culture-hero created by Raven to please the people with its song.

The Robin is considered a symbol of spring.
A well-known example is a poem by Emily Dickinson, "I Dreaded That First Robin So". Among other 19th-century poems about the first robin of spring is "The First Robin" by Dr. William H. Drummond, which according to the author's wife is based on a Quebec superstition that whoever sees the first robin of spring will have good luck.

American popular songs featuring this bird include "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along", written by Harry M. Woods and a hit for Al Jolson and others, and "Rockin' Robin", written by Roger Thomas and a hit for Bobby Day and others.

Although the comic-book superhero Robin was inspired by an N. C. Wyeth illustration of Robin Hood, a later version had his mother nicknaming him Robin because he was born on the first day of spring. His red shirt suggests the bird's red breast.
© More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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European Robin (Erithacus rubecula)
Robin redbreast
non-seasonal topic

Can be seen during all seasons, often in winter. It is also related to Christmas.



Look at a ROBIN Christmas Card.


quote
The Robin has a fluting, warbling song in the breeding season, when they often sing into the evening, and sometimes into the night, leading some to confuse them with the Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos). Nocturnal singing in urban Robins occurs in places that are noisy during the day, suggesting that they sing at night because it is quieter, and their message can propagate through the environment more clearly. Daytime noise outperformed night-time light pollution as a predictor of nocturnal singing activity in urban robins in Sheffield, England.

Culture
The robin was held to be a storm-cloud bird and sacred to Thor, the god of thunder, in Norse mythology. More recently, it has become strongly associated with Christmas, taking a starring role on many a Christmas card since the mid-19th century.[28] The Robin has also appeared on many Christmas postage stamps. An old English folk tale seeks to explain the Robin's distinctive red breast. Legend has it that when Jesus was dying on the cross, the Robin, then simply brown in colour, flew to his side and sang into his ear in order to comfort him in his pain. The blood from his wounds stained the Robin's breast, and thereafter all Robins got the mark of Christ's blood upon them.

An alternate legend has it that its breast was scorched fetching water for souls in Purgatory. The association with Christmas, however, more probably arises from the fact that postmen in Victorian Britain wore red uniforms and were nicknamed "Robin"; the Robin featured on the Christmas card is an emblem of the postman delivering the card. Robins also feature in the traditional children's tale, Babes in the Wood; the birds cover the dead bodies of the children.

Britain does not have an official national bird. The Robin was the most popular bird according to readers of The Times in the early 1960s. Following this, despite some lobbying, the British government did not actively promote the concept of an official national bird. The Robin was used as a symbol of a Bird Protection Society for a few years only.

Two English professional football clubs, Bristol City and Swindon Town are nicknamed "The Robins"; the nickname is derived from both clubs' home colours being red. A small bird is an unusual choice, though is thought to symbolise agility in darting around the field.[31] In addition to the football club, the Swindon Robins is the full name of the local Speedway promotion. It is also the nickname of the English Rugby League team Hull Kingston Rovers. The nickname is derived from the club's home colours, of white with a red band, linking to the redbreast of the Robin.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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Worldwide use

Japan



Japanese Robin
(Erithacus akahige, formerly Luscinia akahige)
kigo for summer

Japanese Robin, red breast, komadori 駒鳥 (こまどり)


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU

Autumn sunshine -
a bird on a leafless twig,
in solitude...

D.V.Rozic


Tomislav Maretić, Croatia, 2007

Robin is a kigo for Spring, but here they are only singing birds in the Autumn.


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Related words

***** Birds of Summer Japan

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Millet (awa, hie, kibi)

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- kibigara zaiku きびがら細工 craft see below -
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Millet, barn millet (hie)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Various, see below
***** Category: Plant / Humanity

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Explanation

Foxtail millet (awa), barn millet (hie) and egg millet (kibi) was the food of the poor farmers, who had to give away their rice crop as taxes to the authorities. It was not considered a weed since olden times.
Now it is often used to feed the birds.



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humanity kigo for early summer

awa maki 粟蒔 (あわまき) sowing of foxtail millet
..... awa maku 粟蒔く（あわまく）sowing foxtail millet


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kigo for mid-summer

sowing of barn millet, hie maki 稗蒔 (ひえまき)
..... hie maku 稗蒔く（ひえまく）

During the Edo period, this was a kind of bonsai that could be kept in a small home or garden to feel the coolness of a large field. Sometimes small dolls were inserted in the trays.



kibi maki 黍蒔 (きびまき) sowing of egg millet
..... kibi maku 黍蒔く（きびまく） sowing egg millet
Panicum miliaceum


seller of milled plants, hiemaki uri
稗蒔売 (ひえまきうり)

　©　singingsand

This vendor sells small pots with barn millet bonsai. His loud call "hie maaakyaa, hie maaki" ひえまアきア、ひえまアき was quite popular in Edo. Sometimes milled seeds were put into pine cones, watered well and put up as green field or green forest images.

Here is a senryu from the Edo period

稗蒔になるとかかしを母はつけ
hie maki ni naru to kakashi o haha wa tsuke

sowing millet
mother puts up a
scarecrow too


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kigo for early autumn

nobie 野稗 (のびえ) wild millet
inuhie, inu hie 犬稗（いぬひえ）"dog's millet"
..... keinu hie 毛犬稗（けいぬひえ)
mizuhie, misu hie 水稗（みずひえ）"water millet"
kusabie 草稗（くさびえ）"weed millet"
tabie 田稗（たびえ）"field millet"
. . . CLICK here for Photos !


suzume no hie 雀の稗 (すずめのひえ)
millet for the sparrows
Paspalum thunbergii Kunth
. . . CLICK here for Photos !


. . . . .



kigo for mid-autumn


awa 粟 (あわ) foxtail millet
Setaria italica
awa no ho 粟の穂（あわのほ）ears of foxtail millet
awamochi 粟餅（あわもち）cakes with foxtail millet
awameshi 粟飯（あわめし）rice with foxtail millet
awabatake 粟畑（あわばたけ）field of foxtail millet


. . . . .


hie 稗 (ひえ) barn millet
Echinochloa esculenta
..... 穇（ひえ）
hatabie 畑稗（はたびえ）field with barn millet
..... tabie 田稗（たびえ）
hie kari 稗刈（ひえかり）cutting millet, harvesting millet
..... hie hiku 稗引く（ひえひく）




kibi 黍 (きび) egg millet
Panicum miliaceum
kibi no ho 黍の穂（きびのほ）ears of egg millet
kibi karu 黍刈る（きびかる） cutting egg millet, harvesting egg millet
..... kibi hiku 黍引く（きびひく）
kibihata, kibi hata 黍畑（きびばた）field with egg millet

kibidango, kibi dango 黍団子（きびだんご）millet dumplings
a speciality of Okayama prefecture



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kigo for the New Year

Ears of foxtail millet and barn millet, awa bo hie bo
粟穂稗穂（あわぼひえぼ）



This is part of a Shinto ritual for the new year, to make sacred sticks or branches of willows or cypresses shaved to resemble ears of reed, kezurikake 削掛 (けずりかけ).
It was popular in the Gion quarters of Kyoto.

Ritual of shaving branches at the Gion quarters in Kyoto,
Gion kezurikake no shinji
祗園削掛の神事（ぎおんけずりかけのしんじ）


©　www.nichibun.ac.jp


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Worldwide use


India

Millet is considered to be the poor, or not-so-privileded people's food in India.
The staple diet is considered of wheat and rice.
Millet is not popular.

Sunil Uniyal
New Delhi


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Kenya

. millet (wimbi) 　
and posho mills


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Yemen

Millet, sorghum [looks like big millet] and maize as main food crops in Yemen.

It's not just millet. It is pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), finger millet and little millet. They are used for human food in the form of flour. In Lahaj very common Khamir lahaji, baked in traditional ceramic ovens [Moufa].
Very delicious with white and red beans.
Or from the flour they make thick porridge Aseed. I know white Aseed and red Aseed. The white one is done with natural joghurt and the red one with dates [therefor very sweet]. They serve Aseed with Gulgul oil.


millet planting - mid summer [June]; rain and post-rainy season

millet harvest -- towards end of the year; late autumn - early winter [October-November]

regions:
Sana'a, Taiz, Ibb, Hodeijda, Tihama with almost desert conditions [North]
Lahaj and Abyan Deltas [South]



it all started
with a patch of dirt -
millet planting

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at eye level
millet grains -
farmers march in

***

some heads pop up
some disappear -
millet harvest


Heike Gewi


YEMEN SAIJIKI


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Things found on the way

kibigarazaiku, kibigara zaiku きびがら細工
handicraft made from millet

millet is used to make many thinks, like brooms and dolls. The forms of ships, people, animals and vehicles are popular.



source : kibigarazaiku.html - 丸山早苗
Zodiac Animals, made by Maruyama Sanae



Chicken, by Aoki Yukio 青木行雄



Dog from Tochigi

. Inu 戌 /　犬　Dog dolls .


. Tochigi Folk Art - 栃木県 .
Kanuma town 鹿沼


. kibigara anesama きびがら姉様 .
"elder sister dolls" from dried skin of maize.
Made in Inaba, Hoki and the Izumo region.






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HAIKU



stone memorial at temple Gedatsu-Ji 解脱寺


粟稗にとぼしくもあらず草の庵　
awa hie ni toboshiku mo arazu kusa no io (an)
- or
粟稗にまづしくもなし草の庵
awa hie ni mazushiku mo nashi kusa no an

foxtail and barn millet
are not scarce at all -
this thatched hut
Tr. Gabi Greve


Written on the 20th day of the 7th lunar month, 1688
貞亨5年7月20日, Oi Nikki 笈日記

At the home of Chookoo 長虹 Choko in Nagoya.
Greeting hokku for a kasen 七吟歌仙 with his disciples.

Choko was a priest at the temple Gedatsu-Ji 解脱寺 in Nagoya.
In the temple compound was the "grass hut" Chikuyooken 竹葉軒 Chikuyo-Ken, "Hermitage of Bamboo Leaves".
Basho observes that the priest had enough to eat, but it was very simple fare, just all kinds of millet, not even rice.


quote
Millet abounding
there’ s no scarcity of food
at the thatched hut

In this haiku Basho compares Choko to Jin Li, who Tu Fu mentions in a poem:

Hermit Jin Li wearing his dark hood
Who’s good at harvesting taros and millet.

- Tr. and Comment : Bill Wyatt


MORE - hokku about the hut
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .


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stone memorial at the temple Seigan-Ji 誓願寺, Nagoya


よき家や雀よろこぶ背戸の粟
yoki ie ya suzume yorokobu sedo no awa

what a splendid house -
the sparrows are delighted
with millet at the back door
Tr. Gabi Greve


Written on the 8th day of the 7th lunar month, 1684
貞亨元年7月8日
This became the hokku for a kasen 歌仙.

A congratulation to the younger brother of Chisoku in Narumi 鳴海の知足亭 on the building of his new home.
Brother 下里三郎右衛門 Shimosato Saburoemon.

. Shimosato Chisoku 下里知足 .


such a fine house -
out back, sparrows delight
in the millet field
Tr. Barnhill


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稗蒔や疲れたる眼にみどりなり
hie maki ya tsukaretaru me ni midori nari

millet plants -
pleasant greenery for
my tired eyes

Tomiyasu Fuusei 風生 Fusei
Tr. Gabi Greve

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ひへ餅にあんきな春が来たりけり
hie mochi ni anki na haru ga kitari keri

enjoying millet dumplings
as spring enfolds
peacefully

together with millet dumplings
this spring has come
peacefully

Issa
Tr. Gabi Greve

HARU , spring, might also point to the New Year, according to the Asian lunar calendar.



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Related words

***** . hatomugi 鳩麦(はとむぎ) Job's tears; tear grass
"dove mugi". Coix lacryma-jobi


***** Saijiki of Japanese Ceremonies and Festivals

. Sowing and planting in summer


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- #kibi #millet #kibikara -
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Seven Herbs Autumn

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Seven Herbs of Autumn (aki no nanakusa)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Early Autumn
***** Category: Plants / Humanity

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Explanation


Kaii Otsuki no hara 甲斐大月の原
Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川広重


The seven flowers of autumn, aki no nanakusa
秋の七草

Flowers blossoming
in autumn fields -
when I count them on my fingers
they then number seven.

The flowers of bush clover,
eulalia, arrowroot,
pink, patrinia,
also, mistflower
and morning faces flower.

aki no no ni
sakitaru hana o
yubi orite
kaki kazoureba
nana kusa no hana

hagi ga hana
obana kuzubana
nadeshiko no hana
ominaeshi
mata fujibakama
asagao no hana

Yamanoue Okura (C. 660 - 733)
Manyoshu: 8:1537-8


The seven grasses of autumn were often mentioned in verses of the Manyoshu, the earliest collection of Japanese poetry and song. Images of autumn grasses in a later anthology of court poetry, the Kokinshu, illustrate the culture of Heian Japan [784 - 1185] in a way that could not be captured by painting. Powerful and concise language draws out the subtle nuances of life and love at the time, just as nature and flowers invoke the mutable seasons of interior emotion.

The capacity of the autumn grasses for inspiring deep emotion among people in olden days may be viewed through their composite nature of beauty tinged with sadness. More than flowers of any other season, autumn grasses washed by rain and bent in the wind attain a beauty unsurpassed, and this is the beauty of flowers for the tea ceremony.

CLICK here for more ENGLISH information!
Urasenke Tea Ceremony
http://www.urasenke.org/new/flowers/index.html






The common theme of these seven flowers is the ""the pathos of things", also translated as "an empathy toward things" or "a pity toward things" (mono no aware 物の哀れ).

The chrysanthemum is notably absent in this flower collection.
But the chrysanthemum has its own festival on the ninth day of the ninth month, Choyo no sekku.

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Bush clover (hagi)
Lespedeza fam.
hagihara 萩原 field with bush clover



Pampas grass (susuki)
Miscanthus sinensis




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Kudzu flower, arrowroot flower, kuzu no hana
(くずのはな) 葛の花
kuzu 葛 (くず) Kudzu, Knabenkraut, Pfeilwurz
kuzu no ha 葛の葉 arrowroot leaves
kuzu kazura 葛かずら（くずかずら）Kudzu-Vine
makuzu 真葛 genuine kudzu
Pueraria lobata

Just using the word "arrowroot (kuzu)" in haiku refers to the leaves of the plant, which are white at the backside and theme of many poems since olden times.

Arrowroot is very strong and lively, the violet flowers stand up between the leaves and are full of power.

A person like a kuzu, "ningen no kuzu" means "human garbage".


makuzuhara 真葛原 (まくずはら) plain of genuine arrowroot


. fuusenkazura 風船葛 (ふうせんかずら)
Candiospermum halicacabum


kuzu horu 葛掘る (くずほる) digging for arrowroot
. . . . . kuzune horu 葛根掘る（くずねほる）
. . . . . kuzu hiku 葛引く（くずひく）pulling out arrowroot
kigo for late autumn



kuzu sarashi 葛晒し (くずさらし) bleaching arrowroot
kigo for late winter

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kigo for early summer

tama maku kuzu 玉巻く葛 (たままくくず) kudzu forming a ball
..... 玉真葛（たままくず）
tamakuzu 玉葛（たまくず）"kudzu ball"

The first green leaves of the plant are still rounded.

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Large pink (nadeshiko) Wild Carnation
fringed pinks


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yellow flowered valerian, "maiden flower" ominaeshi
　女郎花 (おみなえし)
Patrinia scabiosaefolia

ominameshi　おみなめし
awabana 粟花（あわばな)"millet flower"

OMINA means "Woman (onna)" and the yellow flowers remind the Japanese of sweet chestnuts cooked with rice (kuri gohan) .. eshi ... meshi ..

On a long stem there are small yellow flowers and we can enjoy them swaying in the wind. These flowers are rather feminin and gentle in their poetic feeling. When written in hiragana, this feeling is felt double.

The flower has been a favorite in Heian court poetry.

名にめでて折れるばかりぞ女郎花
我おちにきと人にかたるな 秋歌上

na ni medete oreru bakari zo ominaeshi
ware ochiniki to hito ni kataru na

I'm charmed by your name --
for that alone I plucked you.
O maidenflower,
don't tell anyone that
I have fallen from my vows.

Priest Sojo Henjo 僧正遍照 (816 - 890)
source :　L. Hammer

. Soojoo Henjoo 僧正遍照 Sojo Henjo .
(for the hokku by Matsuo Basho, see below.)

- - - - -

七転び髪八起の花よ女郎花
nana korobi ya oki no hana yo ominaeshi

seven tumble down
eight rise up...
maiden flowers

Issa
Tr. David Lanoue

Seven times down and eight times up, this refers to the famous
Daruma san 　だるま　さん !
and the courtesans of the Yoshiwara quarters.


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There is another flower of this family, written with the Chinese character for MAN,
otoko eshi 男郎花, which has white flowers and a thick stem.
Patrinia villosa

otokomeshi おとこめし
oodochi no hana 荼の花（おおどちのはな）
haishoo 敗醤（はいしょう）



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Boneset, fujibakama ふじばかま　藤袴
Eupatorium fortunei

The stem can be more than one meter long. The flowers can be pinkish or white. The flowers resemble a person dressed in a formal Japanese trouser (hakama), hence the name (bakama .. hakama).

This flower also has been the theme of many waka poems of elegance and beauty. Its color fades with the deepening of autumn. It has a faint smell which gets stronger if you break the stem.

Hakama, the formal trouser-skirt

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baloon flower, Chinese bellflower,
kikyoo ききょお　kichikoo 桔梗
Platycodon grandiflorus.

- Sometimes the asagao is quoted instead :

. Morning-Glory (asagao 朝顔) Convolvulaceae family. .


The pronounciation in Japanese can also be: kichikau　きちかう, kichikou　きちこう.
She flowers in places with a lot of sunshine. Her color is especially beautiful. There are also white flowering plants.


kigo for mid-autumn


. rindoo 竜胆 (りんどう) gentian, autumn bellflowers 　
sasarindoo 笹龍胆（ささりんどう）
Gentiana scabra

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sawakgikyoo 沢桔梗 (さわぎきょう) Lobelia sessilifolia
choojina ちょうじな
kigo for early autumn

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kigo for spring

buds of the bell flower, 桔梗の芽 (ききょうのめ)


kigo for late summer


"Stone Baloon Flower", iwa gikyoo 岩桔梗 (いわぎきょう)
Campanula lasiocarpa



Chijima Island Baloon Flower,
Chishima kikyoo 千島桔梗 (ちしまききょう)
Campanula chamissonis

She flowers in the harsh climate of the mountain ranges in Hokkaido and the Chishima Islands in the north of Japan.


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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way



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HAIKU

見るに我も折れるばかりぞ女郎花
miru ni ga mo oreru bakari zo ominaeshi

when I look at you
I will also break my vows -
maidenflower
Tr. Gabi Greve


Written in the years of Kanbun, Basho age 18 to 29 寛文年間
When he was making the decision to leave Iga Ueno for Edo.

A parody about the waka by
. Soojoo Henjoo 僧正遍照 Sojo Henjo .
(see above)


. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .


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角力とりや是は汝が女郎花
sumootori ya kore was nanji ga ominaeshi

sumo wrestler,
these woman flowers
are yours!

This hokku is from lunar 8/7 (mid-September) of 1810, when Issa was in Edo, where the elite sumo wrestlers competed. The first line almost surely has six syllables, since sumou has a long 'o' in Japanese, as indicated by the editors of Issa's diary in the complete works (3.75) and by Maruyama Kazuhiko, who separately edited Issa's Seventh Diary and his selected hokku. And Issa is not averse to "long" six-syllable first lines. In referring to the wrestler, Issa uses the polite second-person pronoun nanji, presumably because of his high status within the sport as a top wrestler. However, nanji wasn't as stilted as "thy" sounds in English. In a later variation Issa uses the neutral sonata for "you." Did he feel it was more intimate and showed the common humanity he shares with the wrestler?

What is often romantically translated into English as "maiden flower" is literally "woman flower," since omina refers to a mature woman, often an older woman. This autumn-blooming meadow plant has clusters of small yellow flowers standing at the top of long, elegant stalks, and the folk etymology of the plant name is that the way the long stalks bend and sway in the wind suggests something female to males. In Issa's hokku, he may be symbolically offering a stalk of the flowers to the wrestler, or he may be telling the wrestler that these woman flowers are "yours" because they are like him and best express the self-image the wrestler is unconsciously projecting to Issa.

In either case, it seems to be the thin, unmuscular, delicate quality of the flowers that causes Issa to want to give some of the flowers to the big, corpulent, muscular wrestler. Issa usually sympathizes with losing wrestlers more than with the winners, and he likes to point out situations in which the apparently invulnerable wrestlers show vulnerability or unexpected sensitivity. In the present hokku he may be addressing the soul of the wrestler and saying that he knows the wrestler has a very sensitive part inside the armor-like male body that he has built up. In another hokku Issa mentions a wrestler with a stalk of flowers stuck in his topknot, so he may be wishing the wrestler in the above hokku would show his other side and wear woman flowers in his hair.

Is Issa engaged in gender bending? I don't know, but he was familiar with the Yi Jing and with yin-yang philosophy, and that means he was familiar with the basic principle that extreme yin turns into yang and extreme yang turns into yin, and he may feel the sumo wrestler embodies an extreme yang position. The hokku before this one in Issa's diary also associates a sumo wrestler with a delicate flower that is very sensitive to light and to its surroundings -- a morning glory.

Chris Drake


. Sumo wrestling　相撲　 .

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世の中はくねり法度ぞ女郎花
yo [no] naka wa kuneri-hatto zo ominaeshi

woman flower
you know we have laws
against such curving
Tr. Chris Drake

This hokku was written in the 8th month (September) of 1812, while Issa was still based in Edo but was on a short trip back to his hometown to prepare for moving back there. In the hokku Issa seems to be flirting with and teasing a woman flower beside a path somewhere. There is a long tradition in Japanese poetry of addressing woman flowers as if they were human women, one that goes back in the early days of waka, when womina (not cognate with English 'woman') meant "beautiful woman," but by Issa's time the pronunciation was omina, and it referred to any grown woman.

It is often translated as "maiden flower," but there was another word for girl or young woman: ominago. In autumn the tiny bright yellow flowers of the bush grow in wide clusters at the top of long, tall stalks that curve gracefully when they bend in the wind, and the stalk is rather thick, allowing it to bend far and sinuously. The strong yellow of the flowers almost equals that of spring rapeseed blossoms, but the flower clusters are diaphanous and more delicate.

Issa addresses the flower (actually a cluster of tiny flowers) with mock solemnity and outrage, telling "her" that, as everyone knows, the samurai authorities have instituted laws against the kind of bending and curving she is doing outside in broad daylight. Does she think she can brazenly ignore the law and sinuously bend and sway right beside a public road? Issa no doubt refers to numerous laws and injunctions, beginning with the outlawing of female Kabuki troupes in 1629, that made it a crime for women to perform in public or wear stylish or provocative robes in public.

The obvious irony saturating Issa's pompous warning of course strengthens the compliment Issa is paying to the flower and to the eye-catching way the stalk and flower move in the breeze. Issa also seems to be parodying the various laws themselves by claiming they apply even to flowers. This hokku seems to be still another oblique criticism by Issa of the authoritarian and highly patriarchal samurai ruling class.

Chris Drake



ominaeshi karamitsuki-keri shiwa-ashi ni

womanflower
wrapping around
my wrinkled foot

. Comment by Chris Drake .


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nora ni saku na wa kore made zo kusa no hana

Flowers of the grass:
scarcely shown, and withered
name and all.

.. Asei


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Related words

***** Seven Herbs of Spring (haru no nanakusa) (Japan)

***** . kanokosoo 纈草 (かのこそう) Valeriana officinalis .
Baldrian


AUTUMN PLANTS - SAIJIKI


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Platanus (sycamore)

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Platanus (sycamore)

***** Location: Europa, other areas
***** Season: Late Autumn
***** Category: Plant

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Explanation
sycomore
Platanus is a small genus of trees native to the Northern Hemisphere. They are the sole members of the family Platanaceae.

They are all large trees to 30–50 m tall, deciduous (except for P. kerrii), and are mostly found in riparian or other wetland habitats in the wild, though proving drought tolerant in cultivation away from streams.

They are known as planes in Europe, and as sycamores in North America. (Outside North America, the name "sycamore" refers to either the fig Ficus sycomorus, the plant originally so named, or the Great Maple, Acer pseudoplatanus.)



The flowers are reduced and are borne in balls (globose head); 3–7 hairy sepals may be fused at base, and the petals are 3–7 (or no) and spathulate. Male and female flowers are separate, but on the same plant (monoecious). The number of heads in one cluster (inflorescence) is indicative of the species. The male flower has with 3–8 stamens; the female has a superior ovary with 3–7 carpels. Plane trees are wind-pollinated. Male balls fall off the branch after shedding their pollen. The female flowers, on the other hand, remain attached to the branch firmly.



The tree literally shrugs off pollution because it is continually outgrowing and shedding its bark. This is why the bark has an attractive "camouflage" pattern in shades of green, gray and cream. The London plane (Platanus acerifolia) is thought to have sprung up in Oxford, England in the 17th century.

© More in the WIKIPEDIA !

Platanus hispanica ... London Plane
Platanus occidentalis ... American Sycamore, American Plane or Buttonwood
Platanus wrightii ... Arizona Sycamore

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Two travellers, worn out by the heat of the summer's sun, laid themselves down at noon under the wide-spreading branches of a Plane Tree. As they rested under its shade, one of the Travellers said to the other,
"What a singularly useless tree is the Plane! It bears no fruit, and is not of the least service to man."

The Plane Tree, interrupting him, said,

"You ungrateful fellows! Do you, while receiving benefits from me and resting under my shade, dare to describe me as useless, and unprofitable?'
Some men underrate their best blessings.

Aesop's Fables

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Worldwide use

Germany

Platane



In Germany, we have many Platanenallee, alleys with this trees by the roadside. They are a joy to drive through in autumn!

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Japan

Momijiba-suzukake (London plane tree)
lit. maple leaf hanging bell tree
Platanus acerifolia

...................... kigo for late spring

flower of the platanus, suzukake no hana
鈴懸の花 (すずかけのはな)

puratanasu no hana プラタナスの花（ぷらたなすのはな）
..... botan no ki 釦の木（ぼたんのき）


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

...................... kigo for late autumn

yellow leaves of the platanus, momijiba もみじば


momijiba fuu 紅葉葉楓（もみじばふう）
Liquidambar formosana（楓, kaede, maple tree）
of Chinese origin.

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Things found on the way

Right outside my front door grows a giant American Sycamore, an outsized tree for a cramped city neighborhood. It's crown of branches crowd in so close to the second floor windows that when I am in that room I feel like I'm living in a tree house.

My favorite description of a sycamore, from a poem
by Gregory Orr, "Elegy," (for James Wright):

.................tree
from which the grey bark
peels and drops until
it stands half
in rags, half in radiance.

Larry Bole

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I love the trees surrounding our house in this little "neck" of the woods (being playful... I might say due to the colors of autumn and my family: me, my wife, sons, and cats, being born in the
South... "redneck" of the woods.)

trees
in such symmetry
spread toward heaven
while holding earth tight
display their colorful array
yet never see the sight

"chibi" (pen-name for Dennis M. Holmes)


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HAIKU

faint autumn sun --
a plane tree leaf drifts
and tumbles down



©　Isabelle Prondzynski / Photo Album

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platanin list
pade na deteljice --
vse triperesne

a sycomore leaf
falls onto the clovers --
all are tree-leaf

une feuille de platane
tombe sur les trèfles --
tous à trois feuilles

　©　Alenka Zorman. tempslibres 2005


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autumn sun ...
a sycamore tree
changes colour

Ella Wagemakers, 2011


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the nakedness
of sycamores stretching
dreams


photo credit : one of our front yard trees,
Sacramento, California, June 2012、by Rebecca Judge

In Sacramento, California, USA : our sycamores are molting, now in June.

molting sycamore
kigo for early summer

Louis Osofsky
- WKD facebook 2012 -


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Related words

***** . Autumn Leaves (momiji, Japan)
yellow leaves, colored leaves


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WINTER Food

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THIS FILE HAS MOVED !



WINTER FOOD


WASHOKU SAIJIKI


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Misaki School Haiku

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美咲中央小学校　俳句　活動

Misaki School Haiku Club


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第２回　句会ライヴin美咲中央小学校

Second Haiku Life Meeting at Misaki School
November 2007





All the students from the fourth, fifth and sixth grade took part in the meeting. Some visitors and mothers could also participate.

After a warm-up session with associations to the word SWEET (amai) to get the mind working, they started scribbeling away.




They had to compose a poem of five-seven-five on the spot, within the limit of about five minutes.
All poems had to include ... slowly, leisurely

After a first round, they had to rework their poems and add a kigo of autumn, which the teacher had written on the blackboard.

Then the best haiku selected by the teacher were put on the blackboard and all discussed them eagerly.

Finally the voting of all students, then the special mentions by sensei and myself.






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グランプリ　　 Grand Prix

ゆっくりと　たちのぼるゆげ　秋うらら　
yukkuri to tachinoboru yuge aki urara

slowly
the steam rises ...
wonderful autumn day

5年　こうき / 5th grade, Kooki



2　　　位　　 Second Prize

ゆっくりと　ながれるよぞら　秋の風　　
yukkuri to nagareru yozora aki no kaze

slowly
the night sky passes by -
autumn wind

6年　あき / 6th grade, Aki




３　 　位　　 Third Prize

ゆっくりと　かん字をなぞる　秋の空　　
yukkuri to kanji o nazoru aki no sora

slowly
I trace the Chinese characters -
autumn sky

4年 けんし / 4th grade, Kenshi
("tracing Chinese characters" many many times is a way to memorize them used by Japanese students.)



Parents and Gabi observing


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ガ ビ 賞　　 Gabi's Prize

ゆっくりと　茶をつぎながら　　てるもみじ
yukkuri to cha o tsuginagara teru momiji

slowly
she pours more tea -
bright shining red leaves
　
6年　 はじめ / 6th grade, Hajime


I could easily see an old couple, the author's grandparents maybe, sitting at the porch and sipping tea in the afternoon. It feels like such a peaceful and rural atmosphere. It had rather a "grown-up" touch to it.
Later I learned Hajime was the author. He is one of the students that live up here in Ohaga in the terraced rice fields in my valley, and he had indeed written about his grandparents.


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こうしま賞　　 Teacher's Special Prize

ゆっくりと　いっしょにかえろ　秋の空　　
yukkuri to issho ni kaeru aki no sora

leisurely
we walk home together -
bright autumn sky

6年　やよい, 6th grade, Yayoi






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入　　 選　　 Runners Up

ゆっくりと　はなしがしたい　秋の空　　　
yukkuri to hanashi ga shitai aki no sora

I want to talk to her
leisurely ...
autumn sky

4年　ゆう / 4th grade, Yuu




ゆったりと　入るおんせん　秋うらら　　
yuttari to hairu onsen aki urara

so leisurely
we enjoy the hot spring -
fine autumn day

5年　りょうた / 5th grade, Ryuuta




ゆったりと　じゅぎょうがすぎる　秋の空　
yukkuri to jugyoo ga sugiru aki no sora

slowly, leisurely
the lesson carries on -
autumn sky

5年　みずき / 5th grade, Mizuki




The best haiku



ゆったりと　花をゆらす　秋の風　　　
yuttari to hana o yurasu aki no kaze

leisurely
it lets the flowers sway -
autumn wind

６年　ゆうた / 6th grade, Yuuta




ゆっくりと　おおきくなあれ　小春の日　　
yukkuri to ookiku naare ... koharu no hi

take all your time
to grow up leisurely ...
Indian Summer Day

やすよ（） / Yasuyo, Mother of a student
Incidentally, she was the mother of Kooki, who got the Grand Prize.







Congratulations to all the winners!

皆、おめでとうございます　！

Gabi Greve, Misaki-Cho, Ohaga




句作りの子供の笑顔　秋うらら

all these smiles
of kids writing haiku -
fine autumn day

ガビ　/ Gabi






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***** Misaki School Haiku Meeting November 2006

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Autumn deepens (aki fukashi)

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Autumn deepens (aki fukashi)
***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Late Autumn
***** Category: Season

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Explanation

autumn is deep (aki fukashi 秋深し (あきふかし)
..... aki takenawa 秋闌（あきたけなわ）
deep autumn, shinshuu 深秋（しんしゅう)

autumn is becoming deeper, aki takuru 秋闌くる（あきたくる）
..... aki fukuru 秋更くる（あきふくる）
aki fukamu 秋深む（あきふかむ）




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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU



秋深き 隣は何を する人ぞ
aki fukaki tonari wa nani o suru hito zo

Matsuo Basho, (26th day, Ninth Month, 1694)
He wrote this haiku a few weeks before his death. He was in Osaka, too ill to attend a poetry gathering at a disciple's house, and sent this poem.


There are various translations of this famous haiku.


autumn deep
the neighbor, what
is it he does?

©　William J. Higginson
Paterson Pieces: Poems, 1969-1979


Autumn deepening –
my neigbour
how does he live, I wonder?
(© Haruo Shirane)


Deep is autumn,
and in its deep air
I somehow wondered
who my neighbour is.
(© Nobuyuki Yuasa)

Autumn deepens –
the man next door, what
does he do for a living?
(© Makoto Ueda)

It is deep autumn
my neighbor
how does he live, I wonder?
(© R.H.Blyth)


Autumn's end –
how does my
neighbour live?
(© Lucien Stryck)

In my dark winter
lying ill, at last I ask
how fares my neighbour.
(© Peter Beilenson)


The depth of autumn:
still my neighbour gives no sign of life.
I wonder how he lives?
(© Harold Stewart)

This deep in autumn,
next door what
do the people do?
(© Thomas McAuley)


Близится зима –
не мешало бы узнать
как живёт сосед.
© dmitri smirnov

.. .. ..

Autumn deepens —
The man next door, what
does he do for a living?
Barbara Louise Ungar


Deep autumn—
my neighbor,
how does he live, I wonder?
the zen frog


... ...


L’automne profond —
quant à mon voisin, que fait
donc cet homme au juste ?
nekojita.free.fr


en plein automne
que fait-il
mon voisin
magoo

... ...

Meio do outono
O que estará fazendo
Aquele meu vizinho?
Andrei Cunha


.........................................

Basho uses the form FUKAKI instead of FUKASHI.fukashi would indicate a cut, a break after line one, as is expressed in some translations here with the dash or other means. With a break, the meaning would tend to the more negative feeling ... who cares about the neighbours ...
By using FUKAKI, however, there is no explicit cut and the meaning leads over to the next two lines. The meaning now leads to a friendly warm wondering about the neighbours.

Sometimes the meaning of a haiku is better shown by not using a cut, but by combining the three sections into one idea.

aki fukaki tonari ...
next to me, there is autumn coming to its end ...
Basho lived in a place where the space to the neighbuor was just one thin wall and he could hear everything from next-door (next-wall, so to say). But beyond the thin wall, Basho could also hear the deepening autumn as his neighbour, so to day, in space.


autumn deepens
and I wonder,
what is my neighbour doing?

Tr. Gabi Greve, inspired by Hasegawa Kai


Peeking in© Photo Gabi Greve, 2007

ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo

Daniel Gallimore on this haiku
WHR 2000

Melopoeia
Basho is renowned - according to Shirane and other Japanese scholars from the Meiji Era onwards - for the musicality of his style, and so it is to Shirane’s translation of a poem written by Basho in the autumn of 1694, shortly before he died, that I turn for an example of melopoeia (i.e. musicality).

Shirane cites this poem as an example of the return to the low style which characterises Basho’s last years. In the first part of his career the poet had sought to transcend his humble origins through study of classical, medieval and Chinese poetics but (in the words of Shirane), he returns in his last years ‘to the exploration of various aspects of Tokugawa commoner life and language.’ What Shirane does not mention, however, perhaps because it is a commonplace of both the high and low styles, is the poem’s remarkable musicality:

Aki fukaki
Tonari wa nani o
Suru hito zo

Autumn deepening -
My neighbour
How does he live, I wonder?


This is a haiku which can survive even the worst of translations, which Shirane’s certainly is not. For even if we do not know its context we can immediately appreciate the implicit image of the poet reaching out for neighbourly warmth as the days get shorter and colder.

That is one way of reading the poem, an instinctive one perhaps, but in fact the poem is a good deal more subtle. A simple contrast of cold and warmth would be enough to constitute a phrase in some extended lyric, but we know that good haiku - especially those by Basho - offer more than simple antitheses, and this is a point which is particularly important to translators trying to render some of that musical complexity.

The first phrase is phonologically closed: the rhyme on aki, the crisp k and delicate i sounds, describe the sweetly relentless onset of autumn and (to admit the contextual metaphor) of Basho’s declining years. The two na sounds are clammy, moist; the poet weakens. But the o at the turn of the line is a very different, majestic sound that is repeated in the emphatic particle zo.
In other words, the solution to that invasive, get-you-down clamminess is not necessarily to visit his neighbour but to go on a journey - as (in a sense) he has been doing throughout his career - to wander, to guess, to allow the poetry to justify his existence. What better way after all to face old age than to carry on using one’s mind?

The final zo ends the poem on a note of triumph, telling the world that he is still a haijin after all, and in fact the poem was submitted as the hokku for a poetry session which Basho was too sick to attend.

The English language, on the whole, lacks the capacity of Japanese for compression of sounds, which pushes Shirane to the other extreme of opening up the spaces between the words and foregrounding their denotative meanings. The diphthongs in the first line (‘au-’ and ‘dee’) establish the contemplative pace. The detachment of ‘my neighbour’ puts the neighbour in mind (makes him the object), since this is not an antisocial poem, and then those four monosyllables - ‘how’, ‘does’, ‘he’, ‘live’ - offer a third aspect, communicating the mystery of the neighbour’s existence.

The phrase is also an effectively ambiguous version of nani o suru; both questions could refer to a multiplicity of activities. Shirane does not reproduce the sound values of the original but he does maintain the tripartite diction.

. . . . .


snow in my valley -
what are my poor neighbours
doing right now?

. Gabi Greve - after the BIG earthquake 　
Big Earthquake on March 11, 2011


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fall deepens
the neighbor next door
grills sauries

Satoru Kanematsu

When a haikuist incorporates another artist's melodic line into their poem, it is considered a compliment and a tribute. Taking this idea a little further and almost in parody, in his haiku above Satoru Kanematsu answered a question master poet Matsuo Basho posed a few weeks before his death in 1694 when he wrote:

Fall deepens
what are the neighbors
doing now?

Narrative poems like this rely on the grammar of the sentence to provide the literal meaning of the poem, and rely on its irony to point to the pathos of a dying man not knowing what his neighbors are up to.

Satoru Kanematsu (Nagoya)

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秋深し　大地に下りる　竜の枝

deepening autumn -
Dragon branches reaching
down to mother earth
© Photo and Haiku: Gabi Greve

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autumn deepens -
the spider still weaves
sunbeams

© Photo and Haiku: Gabi Greve




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autumn deepens -
this internet pilgrim
on the narrow road

. Gabi : Dragon Temples September 2012 .




- Shared at Joys of Japan, September 2012 -

autumn deepens -
what are the neighbours
doing online or real

Hideo Suzuki




autumn deepens
ripples echo on the pond
froggy has email

Chris Loft



शरद ऋतु गहराई
और मुझे आश्चर्य ,
क्या कर रहा है मेरा पड़ोसी?

Hindi translation by Charan Gill



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autumn deepens -
leaves illustrate gradation
coloring from the top

- Shared by Hideo Suzuki -
Joys of Japan, October 2012



*****************************
Related words

***** Autumn (aki) Japan, worldwide

***** . Autumn dusk (aki no kure) Japan

***** Autumn comes to an end .. Japan. Many related kigo

***** . Autumn Melancholy Europe


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