Select Haiku from the Members of the World Haiku Club
Susumu Takiguchi
Oxford, England

 

old hermitage --
narrow steps blunted
by the believers' soles

Sonia Cristina Coman
Constanza, Romania

In October 2001, I paid a visit to Ryushaku-ji. popularly but mistakenly called "Risshaku-ji", another name being "Yama-dera". Climbing each of more than one thousand gigantic stone steps, my thoughts were on the frail figure of Basho who is believed to have started to climb the same steps about three o’clock in the afternoon of 27th of May (13 July according to the Western calendar) in 1689 (Genroku 2).

When I completed the final step onto level ground at the top, I was out of breath and perspiring profusely. The gentle breeze was soft on my heated skin but it also conveyed, somehow on the wings of its wafting air, occasional chirping of crickets which must have been living somewhere in one those many caves and holes mysteriously created by the elements. Exhausted, all I could think of was:

rocks over rocks
climbing to the top temples,
only crickets' chirp  (ST)

When climbing such steps, one tends to watch each step carefully, lest one should fall or stumble. I have more than safety in mind, as I am an artist who is constantly interested in observing different colours, forms and the mass of things. At Ryushaku-ji, each boulder which is used as a step was a sculpture for me. Perhaps, even more than that: I enjoyed its shape, colour, dent and especially any sign of it being worn by the footsteps of the pilgrims, ancient and new.

When I read Sonia’s haiku, all these thoughts came rushing back. What she saw, how and where, may be totally different from my own experience, but there is something incredibly similar in her haiku to what I felt at Ryushaku-ji and, I venture to imagine, to what many people would feel climbing up or down the ancient stone steps in a similar religious setting.

The first line "old hermitage –" is a perfect scene setting. It conjures up a special atmosphere associated with a hermitage, or any other monasteries, the spirit of the place, ancient feeling, isolated location away from people, and the elusive sensibility of both wabi and sabi, without being too obvious.

The second line "narrow steps blunted" is a natural depiction of a specific part of the entire scene, homing from the large (the whole hermitage) into the small (steps). How effectively the adjective "narrow" is used here! It qualifies not only the steps but also the size of the hermitage itself, hence the smallness of our existence.

The third line concludes the natural construction of this haiku by bringing in the image of monks or nuns and visitors or pilgrims, homing in on an even smaller and more specific detail – the soles of their feet.

The poem is full of classical Japanese haiku’s features and feelings, not to mention the world of the greatest haiku poet who ever lived. The only thing missing here from the viewpoint of traditional Japanese haiku is a kigo. This is a rare and fine example of "muki-haiku" (haiku without season words or references). The author may wish to write a different version, using a kigo. However, that is a different story altogether. This haiku can be said to be good in spite of, or perhaps because of, the lack of a kigo. The less specific a haiku is, the more universal it could become. Without a kigo, the haiku can be about any season, just as it can be anywhere where a hermitage is found because it does not specify the place name. If "monastery" is used instead of hermitage, it would be completely universal. However, the word "hermitage" is good and is a factor which makes this an excellent haiku.

Of course, universality is not a guarantee of a good haiku. However, a good haiku having universality could become one of exceptional quality. The famous frog haiku might be even better if that creature was not a kigo.

Sonia’s haiku also has the feeling of being timeless. The scene could be in the 14th century or today. Again, timelessness is not a necessary or sufficient condition of a super haiku. However, in this 21st century, I felt the same sort of stillness at Ryushaku-ji as Basho must have felt, judging from his description of the place, and from his cicada haiku. It would, of course, be presumptuous of us to talk about our own haiku and those by Basho in the same breath. Still, at least we can breathe the same sort of air, hear the same sort of sound, feel the same sort of cold, listen to the same sort of winter rain, see the same sort of rough sea and eat the same sort of devil’s tongue jelly as Basho.

What is found in the haiku under review may be Romanian sensibility, grown in that country’s culture, and expressed originally in her language. At the same time, it is one of a small number of haiku poems written by Western poets, which have plenty of Japaneseness in them. There is a trend in some Western haiku communities: a desire to sever their relationship with the Japanese tradition and move on. The idea is fine, so long as it can achieve some respectable literary merit and a genre in its own right. Looking at the actual poems written by these brave persons, though, one cannot help feeling that such a movement is still slightly premature, and perhaps doing more harm than good. When one encounters a poem like Sonia’s, one is struck with admiration that the work has not only overcome cultural and linguistic barriers, but has also achieved excellence within a language which she is only in the process of learning.

 

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