Red Summer Sun

Leaf 365 – Reflection

 

This poem consciously emulates a haiku by Bashō (see below). But it also attempts to connect Bashō’s poem to our own life here in modern day Tokyo. From our balcony we can see Mount Fuji to the west. Throughout the course of the year, I like to watch the wandering progress of the setting sun as it moves along the mountain ridge first one way and then heading back again. The late summer and early autumn sunsets are always the most spectacular, and they always seem to coincide with the setting sun’s alignment directly behind Mount Fuji. In my mind, it’s as if I’m seeing summer packing up and departing Tokyo for the winter, to spend the cold season of each year’s end in some other, warmer place somewhere beyond Mount Fuji. (As always, I’m not sure how well my Japanese version works; but both versions are 5-7-5).

 

富士山や   赤々の暮れ   秋の風

ふじさんや | あかあかのくれ | あきのかぜ

Mount Fuji | the crimson summer dusk | autumn wind

 

 

A last red sunset –

summer slips past Mount Fuji

with the autumn wind.

Or:

On the autumn wind –

summer’s last warm glow, setting 

behind Mount Fuji.

 

 

Tsukioka Kogyo - Barley Field at Sunrise (c.1900-1910)

 

Bashō’s haiku:

あかあかと日はつれなくも秋の風

 

     The sun bright red,

Relentlessly hot, –

     But the wind is of autumn.

(translated by R.H. Blyth)

 

 

Tsukioka Kogyo - Barley Field (c.1900)

Top photograph by Tim Chamberlain (2024).

Living Room

Leaf 364 – Art Inspired

 

Caroline Johnson - The Living Room at La Mardelle, Brittany

This painting by Caroline Johnson, ‘The Living Room at La Mardelle, Brittany,’ reminds me of several comfortable abodes I’ve known over the years – my own, as well as those of family and friends.

 

 

A clock ticks –

in comfortable

silence.

 

 

 

Feathered Flotilla

Leaf 363 – Art Inspired

 

Print by Sue Welfare

This print by Sue Welfare echoes many a similar scene which I’ve witnessed at the Cornish fishing port of Newlyn. You can almost hear the chaotic, jubilant cries of the seagulls mobbing the small boat as it motors homeward.

 

 

Approaching the narrows –

a feathered flotilla follows

the fishing boat in.

 

 

 

River Twilight

Leaf 362 – Art Inspired

 

Kawase Hasui, ‘Twilight at Kiba Lumber Yard’ (c.1920)

This wonderfully evocative Shin-hanga print by Kawase Hasui, ‘Twilight at Kiba Lumber Yard’ (c.1920), reminds me of many a river scene I’ve encountered here in different parts of Japan. It also reminds me of similar scenes among the muddy inlets along London’s tidal Thames. Captured perfectly in this particular print, I can feel that magical sense of time which only becomes perceptible at certain points at the start and close of day, when the world (and time with it) seems stilled. Almost as though one can reach out and touch the faraway sky, I suppose it has something to do with the riverine acoustics, when the wind drops and the very essence of the outdoors seems to echo deep within.

 

 

Sun dips

in evening deeps,

river stilled.

 

 

 

This haiku was originally written and posted on Bluesky.

Inner Sanctum

Leaf 361 – Reflections

 

To my mind at least, magnolia trees bursting into bloom herald the true onset of Spring each year. The magnolia in the two accompanying photographs is in Hampstead, near Keats Grove. Curiously, due to their longevity as a species, magnolia trees are pollinated by insects, such as beetles, rather than bees.

 

 

An ant in its

inner sanctum

– flowering magnolia.

This poem was originally written and posted on Bluesky in response to a #haikuchallenge writing prompt: sanctum.

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain

Jet Trails

Leaf 360 – Reflections

 

I was recently reading Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (1889). And there’s a sentence in it where he describes sailing fast on water as feeling like flying, or at least “the closest we’ve yet come to it.” – It’s hard to imagine now what the world would have been like before contrails constantly criss-crossed our skies.

 

 

Jet trails

                chasing

each other

                across

the sky – 

 

well-worn paths.

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain

Skywards

Leaf 359 – Art Inspired

 

Carl Holsøe - Interior with Cello

A haiku as homage, inspired by Jacqueline Du Pré’s famous interpretation of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85.

 

 

Sound

of a cello –

soaring skywards.

Jacqueline Du Pré’ - Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85. 

(first movement), 1967.