Leaf 108 – Garden Poems
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Koishikawa Kōrakuen
is one of three surviving so-called ‘Daimyō Gardens’ in Tokyo – the other
two being Rikugien and Hamarikyū. These were gardens which were built
by (or, perhaps more accurately, for) feudal lords during the Edo Period. Kōrakuen
is one of the oldest from that era, begun in 1629 by Yorifusa of the Mito
branch of the clan who at that time had assumed control of Japan as the ruling Tokugawa
Shōgunate.
It was later refined by his son, Mitsukuni, with the help of a Chinese adviser
to the Ming Court, Zhu Shunshui. The garden is laid out in the ‘kai-yu’ style,
meaning it is a circuit style garden, with small ponds connected by channels
and man-made hills arranged around a large central pond. Many of these features
are modelled after well-known scenic landmarks which they echo in miniature.
According to the information leaflet given to visitors: “The name ‘Kōrakuen’
was derived from a Chinese text ‘Memorial to Yueyang Tower’ by Fan Zhongyan,
meaning ‘Worry before all worries in the world, and enjoy after all enjoyments
in the world.’”
The following poem (the first in
an initial series of three) focusses on one of the central landmarks of the garden. The
Engetsu-kyo, or ‘Full Moon Bridge,’ is a large and very solid-looking structure
built out of grey stone. It is modelled in such a way so that the arch of the
bridge forms a perfect circle with its reflection in the water (or, at least,
it does when the weather conditions are right, as I discovered). The aesthetic
of this and the bridge’s design itself has been attributed to the Confucian
influence of Zhu Shunshui. It is one of the most historically significant
features of the garden from Edo-Era Japan. Somewhat unusually for me, I’ve
given this poem a short, gembun-like introductory line – what R.H. Blyth would describe as a ‘prescript,’ in the
manner of haijin from the classical canon – in order to give some additional context to the haiku;
information which is perhaps intrinsic to understanding the verse, but which of
necessity needs to remain extraneous to the aesthetic expression of the poem
itself. The other two poems in my sequence on Kōrakuen will follow in the
subsequent ‘leaves’ of this blog (Leaf 109 & Leaf 110).
Today, only a half-moon bridge:
A lunar-grey ellipse
– waxing gibbous,
over a green pool.
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