triveni spotlight: 29th April 2023
- Kala Ramesh
- Apr 29, 2023
- 1 min read
triveni spotlight A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY! hosts: Teji Sethi and Kala Ramesh GUEST EDITOR: Ashish Narain
for me going
for you staying:
two autumns
Shiki tn. by Patricia Donegan with Yoshie Ishibashi
In Love Haiku: Japanese Poems of Yearning, Passion, and Remembrance. 2010. Shambhala, Boston
This month is going to be a treat for our members. _()_ Thank you so much, Ashish.
One of my all-time favourites. I prefer Hass' simplified translation:
I go
you stay;
two autumns
Sometimes mistakenly attributed to Buson. Blyth comments that it was written by Shiki on parting from his friend Soseki, and that it is existentialist in sentiment. For me, it also summons up the (autumnal) sadness of parting, along with the recognition that despite bonds, we are separate people with separate experiences. The parting of friends in autumn is an ancient theme (I think too of the songs in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde / Song of the Earth based on Chinese poetry of the Tang dynasty over a thousand years ago, especially The Solitary in Autumn and The Farewell).
Lastly, reading from the…
Long been one of my favorite haiku—I do’s think anyone has ever written so effectively about loss.
A beautiful poignant poem.
What a wonderful use of kigo. Something has ended allowing the reader plenty of dreaming room.
One of my favourites of Shiki. There are a few other versions too in the translations, but L3 - two autumns - is the most unusual and poignant way to express the two different paths a couple could take when separating - through mishap, death or any other cause.