Old Edo East Sea Road

(Leaf 103) – Looking Back

 

Utagawa Hiroshige - Tōkaidō at Hakone (1833)

See also, Leaf 62 & Leaf 63.

WALKING THE TŌKAIDŌ AGAIN – A TRAVEL HAIBUN, 5th MAY 2009

 

We set out very early this morning, taking the train from Shinjuku to Hakone-Yumoto, where we caught a local bus up to the village of Hatajuku. From there we joined the old Tōkaidō (East Sea Road) at the point where two old distance markers still stand. These are two sets of low circular stone walls, each surmounted by a mound of earth, and each with a small tree growing from the summit; one placed on either side of the old paved road, opposite one another.

 

Because this is the Golden Week holiday, Hakone-Yumoto was bustling with a great many people, most of whom have come to stay at the onsen ryokan (hot spring inns). The Tōkaidō, however, was much less busy. We passed or walked in line with a few other couples, small groups, or families at times, but mostly on our own. When I first walked this stretch of the Tōkaidō it was the middle of winter and I neither passed nor met another soul until I had reached Moto-Hakone – and this was from starting out on foot from Hakone-Yumoto itself.

 

Six years since –

so freshly scented,

the old wooded road.

 

The weather today was overcast, as it was when I walked here five or six years ago, only this time, it was much warmer and humid with it. Not long after midday a mist rolled down from higher up in the mountains. It passed between the tall tree trunks (hinoki and sugi), like a ghostly haze, illuminated by the light which penetrated the dense canopy of green leaves above, creating a beautifully serene and enchanting atmosphere. It began to rain with large drops of moisture falling from the tall greenery towering above us. The stones of the Tōkaidō became wet and slippery underfoot, we had to make our way with care so as not to slip or fall. Along the way, when we were nearing the end of our walk, we stopped at a popular tea house for some refreshments and a short rest.

 

The old Amazake-Chaya

– as busy as

the rain outside.

 

Old Hakone (c.1920s)

When we later reached Moto-Hakone and Ashinoko (Lake Ashi), Fuji-san was entirely hidden from view by cloud – just as it was when Matsuo Bashō passed by this way, and just as it was when I came here before in 2003/2004. Since then, the bus station has been modernised, and continuing down the tall cedar-lined part of the Tōkaidō to the Hakone Barrier (sekisho), a kind of wayfarer’s Customs post, we found that the Barrier itself has been reconstructed on its original foundations, just as it was in the Edo period, when Bashō would have walked through it. After savouring a lunch of hot soba noodles and mountain vegetables we took a look around the Barrier buildings and the small museum there before walking back to the bus station, where in 2003/2004 I’d met Emi Miyamoto, a Shinto pilgrim and tanka poet who had been travelling around all the Shinto shrines hereabouts on a New Year’s holiday pilgrimage.

 

At the sekisho

– no sword,

only my pen!

 

We took the bus back down to Hakone-Yumoto and strolled around the shops there in the pouring rain until it was time to board our train and head back to Tokyo.

 

Past times revisited

– the old Tōkaidō’s stones,

changing and unchanged.

 

 

Felice Beato - Tōkaidō (1825)

-------------------------------------------------------

This haibun contains my first attempt at writing a haiku in Japanese. Although it is really an attempt at translating a haiku written in English into Japanese, consequently it doesn’t quite work. It is a 5-7-5 haiku, but the syllable count is slightly off centre (6-6-5), and it is missing some of the more usual elements of haiku; plus I think the Japanese-usage is probably a little off kilter too. But for what it’s worth, here it is:

 

甘酒茶屋  人に満ちる  外も雨

あまざけちゃや  ひとにみちる  そともあめ

Amazake-Chaya | people filled (with) | outside also rain

 

Or:

 

The old Amazake-Chaya

– as full (or busy) as

the rain outside.

 

Colour photographs of the Tōkaidō by Tim Chamberlain, 2004 & 2009

Old Soap

(Leaf 102) – Reflections

 

Abandoned buildings have always fascinated me. When I used to work in a museum, I was sometimes sent to an outstation – a store where hardly anyone ever worked, and people only rarely visited. Consequently, the building had an antique air all of its own. It felt like it hadn’t changed in decades. One of the things that really fascinated me was the old bars of soap by the sinks in the washrooms. Every time I looked at them, I couldn’t help wondering how long they had been there and how long it had been since anyone had last used them. They looked like museum-objects in their own right, and in some cases they probably were.

 

 

In the soap dish,

brittle and yellow

as bone; the windows

closed, only sunlight

comes and goes.

 

 

This poem was first published in dew-on-line two (2002).

Photograph credit: Mint Images / Science Photo Library

Beneath the Bridge

(Leaf 101) – Reflections

 

We often talk of water passing under the bridge as a metaphor for the passing of time, either swift or slow. But if the bridge is a sufficiently old one, then there is probably a lot which can be plumbed in those dark depths under its arches, given the unnumerable generations which it has spanned and carried over the passing of centuries – keeping count like a metronome. 

 

 

Beneath the bridge

– shade

on still water.

 

This haiku was first published in still 5: three (2001).

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain

Just Married

(Leaf 100) – Reflections

 

This poem speaks to a happy realisation which dawned on me one morning under a bright blue sky while hanging out the washing on our balcony in the sunshine. Only a couple years more, and I’ll need three hands.

 

 

Hanging the laundry:

our “Just Married”

tea towel –

     counting the years,

     on the fingers of two hands.

 

 

Photograph by Tim Chamberlain

Bachelor Pad

(Leaf 99) – Art Inspired

 

This poem was written as a response to a #NaHaiWriMo prompt to write a haiku using the words: ‘Bachelor Pad.’ And naturally, this was the first thing which sprang to mind … (I’ve written about my fascination with, and my fondness for the Emma Peel era of the 1960s British TV series, ‘The Avengers’ before – see, Leaf 71).

 

 

A dapper bachelor pad

– Steed makes tea

for Mrs Peel.

 

 

Zigzagging

(Leaf 98) – Looking Back

 

Dame Laura Knight - On the Cliffs

This poem was written as a response to #SenseWrds Prompt 75 to the words: Winding, Sunlit, Recognition (without using those words). It reflects a real moment remembered from family holidays in Cornwall.

 

 

Following the narrow path,

zigzagging

down a steep-sided cove

to the silver, shimmering sea

 

– seeing my family ahead of me,

walking into memory.

 

 

 

Past Midnight

(Leaf 97) – Homeward Bound

 

This poem was written as a response to #SenseWrds Prompt 73 to the words: Desolate, Silvered, Street (without using those words). It reflects a real moment remembered from my undergraduate days, when I lived in Manor Park, London, E12.

 

Past midnight – a long walk home 

through empty East Ham,

neon-glazed cold, wet underfoot.

 

 

 

Photograph credit: PickPik

High Speed Rail

(Leaf 96) – Looking Back

 

This poem was written at far too early an hour on the KTX, while travelling (seemingly on a beam of light) from Busan to Seoul in 2005.

 

 

The train passing swiftly over

misty ghost-land levees.

 

Early morning fog,

sunlight

         lifting.

 

 

 

Photograph credit: Pixabay

The Balloon

(Leaf 95) – Reflections

 

Le Ballon Rouge (1956)

I’m not sure what prompted me to write this poem, or when. It’s definitely an old one, and it seems like there’s a moral hidden in there somewhere …

 

 

Holding onto

the balloon,

will not stop

the wind from

wanting to take it!

 

 

Photograph credit: Alchetron 

Family Album

(Leaf 94) – Looking Back

 

This haiku was written in response to a #prompt on Bluesky to write a haiku using the word: ‘snapshot.’ The first thing which sprang to mind was all the times I have spent hours staring at old photographs in family albums of relatives who died before I was born. I have done a lot of research tracing my family tree, so these albums are always an endless source of fascination. Looking at those small images, bent and brittle, black and white, or fading sepia tints. Looking at the smiling faces of great grandfathers and great grandmothers especially, people who I am related to only a couple of generations back, but who I never met. Relatives whom my parents and grandparents knew and have told me about. People in whom I can see familiar likenesses; people whom I am clearly connected to; people whom I’m descended from. People who look directly out of those photos at me, but (I can’t help wondering) can they see me – so many, many decades later – staring back at them? … Apart, but I am a part of them; and them, they are a part of me. Sharing this (seen and unseen) connection. 

 

 

Unknown faces,

gazing into my soul

– snapshots in the family album.

 

 

 

Photograph credit: Pixabay

Rock of Ages

(Leaf 93) – Reflections

 

Jack Schmitt and Tracy's Rock (NASA)

This is another poem which I wrote about the NASA Apollo lunar-landing missions, the last one: Apollo 17, in December 1972. There were two things which caught my imagination about this particular mission when I was young. Firstly, a geologist was a member of the crew. And second, was an image of that geologist standing beside a huge boulder, simply lying there on the barren surface, dwarfing that small human figure in his spacesuit. Geology was something I could relate to, and the idea that Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmidtt was not from the US military, but rather was an academic, really fired my interest. I couldn’t help wondering what it must have been like to be a geologist who got to go to the Moon. It must have been fascinating for him in a way which I wondered if the other astronauts could comprehend. I’m sure they were all equally fascinated with different aspects of the lunar-landing missions, each in their own way. But Schmidtt’s perspective was genuinely something which I felt I could connect with. Plus, the famous footage of him falling over and saying “Dagnamit!” was all the more endearing because it was so very human – (I’m sure if I went to the Moon, falling over would be one of the first things I would do!) – Plus, the laconic commentary of “Jack Schmidtt, having a few problems” seemed a marvellously understated contrast to the enormous and awe-inspiring boulder which had sat undisturbed in the aeons-long silence until Schmidtt approached it and surveyed it with both a human and an expert eye. For me, this was the real pinnacle moment of space exploration.

 

 

Rock of Ages

– “Jack Schmitt,

having some problems.”

 

 

Jack Schmitt and Earth - Apollo 17 (NASA)

 

One Small Step

(Leaf 92) – Reflections

 

Fifty-six years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. Since I was a child, the lunar landings and NASA’s Apollo missions have always fascinated me. I wrote the following tanka and haiku as two separate reflections upon the reality of those missions (trying to imagine what it must have felt like for Armstrong and Aldrin), and the place of the Moon in different human mythologies. Both East and West, from the rabbit to the man in the Moon. Thinking of all the times I’ve looked up at the Moon, in different places and at different times and circumstances in my life. A silver sixpence shining in the night sky, seen from wherever we are in the world – in many ways, the Moon unites us. A symbol of peace, forever unchanging in the dark and noiseless, unbounded void of space – unchanged, except for those brief moments during the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Moon, of course, is also a significant and recurring motif and a kigo (season word) in Japanese haikai.

 

 

Tranquillity

to magnificent desolation,

two sides of the same coin,

almost the same

– silver moon.

 

***

 

Small steps, a leap,

the rabbit becomes a man

– silver moon.

 

 

Photograph credits: NASA/Wikipedia

Bow Cat

(Leaf 91) – Looking Back

 

These haiku form a series of poems inspired by and about one of the loveliest cats I have ever known. Her life coincided with mine from when I was around twelve or thirteen, until I was twenty-eight. All of these poems were written in 2003. Each one is a separate poem, but they clearly sit together as a linked series. However, they don’t necessarily need to be read in the following order.

 

 

Bow cat,

chasing a bee

– evening sun.

 

***

 

All night on the tiles

– Bow cat, sleeping

in the morning sun.

 

***

 

Bow cat –

shoulder sitting,

whilst I try to type.

 

***

 

Bow cat,

hiding beneath my desk

– no work, all play.

 

***

 

Bow cat sleeping,

one eye open

like a green jade.

 

***

 

Bow cat –

nudging her head

into my neck.

 

***

 

Bow cat –

dreaming on the quilt,

sleeping a sigh.

 

 

Original photograph by John Chamberlain

A Failed First Attempt

(Leaf 90) – Reflections

 

Joaquin Sorolla - Hall of the Ambassadors, Alhambra, Granada (1909)

This poem doesn’t work, sadly. It’s a good example of a failed first attempt. On the surface there is nothing outwardly wrong with it. Some people would say it doesn’t work because it has a title. I’ve seen some purists claim that haiku shouldn’t have, nor should they need, titles. If they do, then they’ve failed. I see the validity of this point, but (on some occasions) I reserve the right to disagree. Even some of the greatest haiku poets in Japan would add ‘prescripts’ (as Blyth sometimes describes them) to their poems when they felt it was necessary. Similarly, in some instances, a title gives a short poem some extra context which allows it to work better, without getting in the way of the wording or the expression contained in the poem itself. Here the inclusion of a title is vital, because – well, … perhaps it’s best if I explain after you’ve read it:

 

 

ALHAMBRA

 

Running in rivulets,

tinkling over stone

– disappearing out of sight.

 

 

My original intention and ambition in writing this poem was to capture something of the feeling, both visual and aural, of what it felt like wandering around the gorgeous, palatial gardens of the Alhambra at Granada, in Spain – which I visited a few years ago. It is a beautiful place. I’d wanted to visit the Alhambra for many, many years. And happily, it did not disappoint. It more than rose to my expectations, especially evoking for me all the musical echoes which I’d found imbued in Manuel de Falla’s sublime interpretation of the place; his ‘Noches en los jardines de España,’ or ‘Nights in the Gardens of Spain,’ which he composed between 1909-1915.

 

Idly ambling around the grounds, one can’t help but notice the sound of water everywhere. Augmenting the visual beauty of the gardens, the subtle and ingenious use of water seems to run throughout the place – seen and unseen. Hearing the gentle plash of water from fountains and streams helps to keep one feeling cool, even in the full sun of midday. And so, like de Falla before me, this is what I was attempting to capture in my short little haiku – but then having written it, and feeling it was a good poem, I found something quickly and somewhat unexpectedly changed. My poem had sprung a leak! – Stunned, I sat back and re-read it with genuine horror. In an instant, I very quickly saw the poem in a completely different light; because – without the title – it could (much more logically) be read as a senryu, instead of a haiku. A somewhat ribald and earthy senryu about a man, who, on leaving the pub at closing time after a heavy afternoon and evening “on the ale,” starts to make his way home, but swiftly finds he needs to duck into a back alley behind the local picture house or flea-pit cinema, in lieu of a public convenience, in order to relieve himself of his earlier over-imbibing!! … And, horror upon horrors, who’s to say the picture palace isn’t called ‘The Alhambra’ as well; many once were – so even the title, in this instance, is no real help in the end after all!!

If that particular reading doesn’t ruin the poem for you, then your sensibilities must be more resilient than mine. Instead, I’m going to right this one off to experience and call it “a flawed first attempt.” Consequently, the quest to encapsulate the real Alhambra – the one in Spain – and distil the magical essence of its gorgeous gardens into a haiku, for me at least, and for the time-being at any rate, remains, on-going, or – “a work in progress.”

 

So, as they say: watch this space …

 

The Alhambra, Keswick

Heron

(Leaf 89) – Art Inspired

 

Ohara Koson - Heron under New Moon (c.1900-1910)

This poem was written in response to a wonderfully evocative haiku written and posted on Bluesky by Hirofumi Kaneko (which you can read here), that skilfully creates an alluring image of a wet rice field without mentioning the otherwise overwhelming presence of water. My response attempts to continue and further open-out the elemental allusions, while once again avoiding the immediately obvious:

 

 

Ankle deep –

lifting the heron’s long feathers,

a gentle breeze.

 

 

 

Evening Waltz

(Leaf 88) – Homeward Bound

 

Mike Quinn - Grand Union Canal near South Harefield (Geograph)

This poem recalls a view of my grandparents’ cottage beside the Grand Union Canal in a rural part of Middlesex. It was originally written in response to a #haikufeels ‘prompt’ (on Bluesky) to write a haiku using the word: ‘dwell.’

 

 

Dwelling by the canal

– gnats and midges,

dancing over silent water.

 

 

 

Book Leaves

(Leaf 87) – Garden Poems

 

Okuhara Seiko - Cherry Blossoms and Moon (c1900-1910)

This poem was written in Shinjuku Gyoen on 14th April 2009, just after I’d begun to attend Japanese lessons nearby. It felt fun to be starting school again after so many years, now aged in my thirties. After class, I used to go to Shinjuku Gyoen – a lovely park, not far from the ever bustling and busy Shinjuku Station – and relax there, a world away from the urban surroundings, sitting on the grass with my books, studying in the pleasant, but not yet too warm sunshine of spring.

 

 

Cherry blossom petals,

caught in the pages

of my school books.

 

 

 

Poems Evolve

(Leaf 86) – Essays on Haiku

 

Tsuchiya Koitsu - Naga-ame, or Long Rain (c.1930s)

Sometimes it is hard to know if more is less, or less is more. One of the persistent pleasures in penning haiku is all its possible permutations. In many ways, it can pose an almost unresolvable dilemma, much like for a painter wondering which brushstroke will be the last when attempting to complete a particularly cherished painting? … Some poems spring from the poet’s head – like Zeus – fully-formed and divinely perfect. But others need a bit more work. Re-working can become laborious, or it can even span decades, until the poem finally “feels right.” I think the key thing to remember is not to rush things. If it takes decades, let it. And there’s no shame in revising an existing poem, if one feels a newer version works better. Time changes, and things evolve – we certainly do, so why not our poems too?

 

I recently wrote a poem which seemed to evolve of its own accord out of a haiku into a tanka, as follows:

 

#1. (Haiku)

Enjoying the soft,

pitter-patter  

– early morning rain.

 

 

#2. (Haiku >> Tanka)

Enjoying the soft

pitter-patter

beyond the screen,

early morning rain.

 

 

#3. (Tanka)

Enjoying the soft

pitter-patter

beyond the screen,

still feeling sleepy

– early morning rain.

 

I think the reason it evolved was because, like many of my poems, it is based on a real memory/experience. In this case, it reflects a specific moment sitting on the tatami-floor of a room at an onsen ryokan in Izu (the same ryokan in fact where the writer, Kawabata Yasunari used to stay, and which is the place that inspired his short story, ‘Izu no Odoriko’, or ‘The Dancing Girl of Izu’), where I stayed in June 2005. Hence, I think I felt like I wanted to include two specific elements of the memory – namely the gentle sound of the rain and the fact that I was hearing it through the meshed-screen drawn over an open window. If I could, I’d have probably tried to shoehorn in the strong scent of the tatami floor as well, but that really would have been overdoing it!

 

On the whole, I think this particular ‘haiku moment’ works best as either a haiku (i.e. #1.) or as a tanka (#3.), the middle verse (#2.) is merely a stepping stone, and one that’s only barely raises itself above the waterline at that. I posted all three on my Bluesky account, and quite rightly the haiku (#1.) won the most “likes.” And I think the reason for this is because, while haiku can be specific in terms of details, place, timing, etc., they still need to be universal. In order to aim for that, they need to retain an openness which makes them accessible to others – people reading that first haiku will not be seeing the same room/place/time/scene in the same way that I saw it, but rather their own internalisation of it. Hence the two subsequent versions get bogged down and become too heavy, too didactic.

 

But a curious thing happened almost a month after I posted the three versions of this poem on-line. I was sitting on the sofa in our living room here in Tokyo one evening, reading a book, with the window open and the mesh-screen pulled over to prevent unwanted insect visitors from simply wandering indoors, when it began to rain. It was the end of May, almost the same time of year as the “haiku moment” in Izu occurred twenty years ago. The same gentle pitter-patter of the rain heard outside, just as it is usually encountered here during the rainy season in Japan. Instantly, another haiku moment popped into my head. This one, fully-formed:

 

Gentle sound of rain,

beyond the screen

– moonless night.

 

There’s still no scent of tatami in this one, but that’s because we don’t have tatami floors in our apartment. And it’s now late night, rather than early morning. But I think this poem works equally well as does the first. In many ways, many haiku speak to the same moment, the same idea; essentially, they paint the same picture, they set the same scene – but it’s something ineffable which tells us when they’ve hit the right note and can be left alone at last, just as they are.

 

Kasamatsu Shirō - Passage (1962)