In dense fog
what is being shouted between
hill and boat.
Basho
There are only eleven words in this simple Haiku poem by the great Zen poetry master Basho. But in these eleven words, a great portrait, a story unveils itself to me.
The objective observation, the neutral position of the writer. The backwardness of the sentence, as compared with the Western way of structuring it. We would frame the sentence with the speakers: "A person in the boat and someone on the hill were shouting .."
So the story has to come together in our mind like a puzzle, in which we envision the thing - an unseen boat, a foggy day, the possibility of crashing into shore in the fog. What are they shouting? What is the cargo of the boat?
And since it is not framed as a question, another way the story falls for me is that they might actually shouting literally, "what?" "what?" between the boat and the shore at some part in the exchange. It seems very plausible.
I find myself imagining Basho himself, whom I have not yet googled. Is he the poor monk, alone meditating on the hill in Japan, who experiences this personally? Did he set out to write a poem that day, or not? Yet, here it is, all eleven words of it, hundreds of years later surviving so that in 2011 I am typing it into a keyboard and expounding upon it by means of the Internet. Basho, could you ever have possibly imagined?
As it turns out, he lived between 1644 - 1694, and was likely born in the class of samurai families. He was primarily a teacher and an intellectual. After gaining some recognition with the academic elite, he later spent many years on his own traveling and exploring, observing nature to write and perfect his craft.
It certainly can be dangerous, though, so let us be patient, careful and eventually, we know in time the fog will lift.
As it turns out, he lived between 1644 - 1694, and was likely born in the class of samurai families. He was primarily a teacher and an intellectual. After gaining some recognition with the academic elite, he later spent many years on his own traveling and exploring, observing nature to write and perfect his craft.
We have occasional fog in Indiana, and it was heavy here a couple of days ago. The day will start out foggy like cold pea soup, and then be bright and sunny in the afternoon. No coastal stuff that can hang around all day.
It certainly can be dangerous, though, so let us be patient, careful and eventually, we know in time the fog will lift.
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