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Ryushaku-ji
Bruce Ross
Orono, ME, USA |
Perhaps more than any other spot I
was to visit in retracing Basho's Narrow Road to the Far North, Ryushaku-ji,
the place Basho wrote his famous cicada haiku, drew me. A few days before I left
for Japan I hiked up a local mountain in Northeast Maine. It was a steep
vertical climb, and nearing the open top that was covered in pink granite, I
came to an insight into Basho's haiku as I looked at the scattered rocks just
below the summit:
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Chick Hill summit
a cricket reverberates
among the rocks
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The
sound of that lone cricket intensified the stillness of that mountaintop in a
way similar to the sound of Basho's cicada. About halfway up the climb to
Ryushaku-ji, there was a monument dedicated to Basho's cicada haiku. According
to our guide, this was the spot where Basho heard the cicada, although there was
some conjecture as to which variety of cicada he had heard. I noticed that a
Buddha bas-relief next to the monument had all but worn into the rock it was
carved into. At the summit I experienced the stillness Basho had come here to
find. I even heard a lonely cricket's voice. It was dusk.
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Ryushaku-ji
through dense rising mist
the crow's call
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Translation of Basho's cicada
haiku by Bruce Ross
Digital haiku-art "Yamadera" by D.W. Bender
