Garrison Keillor told me this morning that
It’s the birthday of Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa (books by this author), born in Kashiwabara, Japan (1763). He’s one of the masters of the Japanese form of poetry called haiku, which uses 17 Japanese characters broken into three distinct units. He spent most of his adult life traveling around Japan, writing haiku, keeping a travel diary, and visiting shrines and temples across the country. By the end of his life, he had written more than 20,000 haiku celebrating the small wonders of everyday life.
Guess I have a ways to go.
Everything I touch
with tenderness, alas,
pricks like a bramble.
— Kobayashi Issa
Over two hundred on the fun-side-project though and here’s a couple strays to keep you going.
tonight fireflies
waltz with raindrops in the dark
while the sky dances[***]
I got a buzz on
yesterday while at the beach
said man, walking by.The green force of June
rippling down a rainy road
with darkness behindthe skies darkening
as the weathermen urge us
to pay attention.the disappointment:
the lawn mower starts then fades
the grass goes unmown.I hope Van Gogh knows
how his cypress trees and skies
pulled my heart today.Vincent, all these folk
came to look at your paintings
many moved to tears.hanging on these walls
the swirling skies and flowers
familiar and new.
