New Year's Haiku

[Guest guest]

Here are some old Japanese Haiku about New Year's (translations by R.H. Blyth):

 

The Great Morning

Winds of long ago

Blow through the pine-trees.

-- Onitsura

 

(The "Great Morning" wass an ancient Japanese term for the morning of New

Year's. )

 

New Year's Day:

The beginning of the harmony

Of Heaven and Earth.

-- Shiki

 

 

New Year's Day;

Nothing good or bad,-

Just human beings.

-- Shiki

 

 

That is good, this too is good,-

New Year's Day

In my old age.

--Ryoto

 

 

New Year's Day also

Has come to its close,

With the sounding bell.

-- Hakki

 

 

New Year's Day;

Whosoever's face we see,

It is care-free.

-- Shigyoku

 

 

The First Day of the Year:

I remember

A lonely autumn evening.

-- Basho

 

 

New Year's Day:

The desk and bits of paper,-

Just as last year.

-- Matsuo

 

 

New Year's Day:

My hovel,

The same as ever.

-- Issa

 

 

New Year's Day:

What luck! What luck!

A pale blue sky!

-- Issa

 

 

New Year's Day

I do not hate

Those who trample on the snow.

-- Yayu

 

 

The dawn of New Year's Day;

Yesterday,

How far off!

-- Ichiku

 

 

The first dream of the year;

I kept it a secret,

And smiled to myself.

-- Sho-u

 

 

The smoke

Is now making

The first sky of the year.

--Issa

 

 

[blyth's commentary on this last haiku is: "No smoke, no sky; no sky, no

smoke. But Issa does not think this. He knows, somehow or other, that the

smoking rising and forming the first sky of the year has a meaning that can

be expressed only by pointedly saying nothing about it."]

 

 

All quotations are from Haiku Volume 2: Spring by R.H. Blyth. Tokyo: The

Hokuseido Press, 1981.

 

-- David

P.S. I have some new pictures today in my journal, which is at

http://www.outermost.com.