Swallowing a Cloud

White porcelain cup:
bindweed swallowing a cloud
The eye brims with light

The middle line arrived when I turned back to look more closely at the bindweed and noticed the cloud disappearing "into" the flower. Wednesday's line was joined by two others this morning, two days later. A gift. I don't generally use formal structures or rules in writing poetry; my pieces tend to evolve, creating (summoning) their own shapes. However, the haiku-like form's simplicity seemed to suit the snapshot's capture of an expansive August moment.

"The Abode of Illusion"

withering wind
is the fragrance still attached
to the late-blooming flower

or

withering wind
has it been colored by
a late-blooming flower

– Matsuo Basho

Imagine people so eager to have a poet stay in the area that they would find him a home or build a special house for him. In the summer of 1690, Basho was treated to that honor and lived in a house on Lake Biwa called “The Abode of Illusion” or “The Unreal Hut.” It had a panoramic view overlooking the lake and the Seta River.

This intriguing biographical fact and a wealth of others appear in Basho: The Complete Haiku, translated by Jane Reichhold, just out in 2008. Tomoe Sumi at Kodansha America sent me a lovely hardcover copy with artwork by Shiro Tsujimura. The book includes Reichhold’s translations of Matsuo Basho’s haiku, literal translations, original Japanese versions, biographical information, a chronology of Matsuo Basho’s life, an appendix of haiku techniques, a glossary of literary terms, and notes to clarify and enhance the work. For instance, beyond the two versions of the above poem, if one refers to it by number (760) in the notes, there is this explanation:

1691 – autumn. The idea behind the first version of this poem is that the cold, strong wind should have blown away something as delicate as the scent of the flower. Nioi can also be translated as “color,” hence the second version of the poem. Traditionally, the cold autumn wind is described as white.

Where I live, the October sky is now pearly gray, dusk approaching. I’ll leave you with another Basho haiku from this extensive and deep collection. He wrote this poem after the Priest Unchiku, a famous calligrapher from Kyoto, showed Basho a portrait (likely his own) with the face looking away. He asked him to write a poem on it. Basho responded, “You are sixty years old and I am almost fifty. Life was like a dream just as Chuang Tzu said. The portrait looks like a dream and now I am adding sleep talk to it.”

turn this way
I am also lonely
this autumn evening

– Matsuo Basho

This last haiku is #681. For more about Basho, go to “Wine Berries,” the July 14^th post.

The photograph was taken on a visit to Watkins Glen, New York, with my younger daughter on 9/23/08. We loved the intricate rock formations, the waterfalls, and the teal water collecting in amoeba-shaped pools. Just click on the image to enlarge it.

Questioning the Blog

No, I’m not interrogating the blog, aiming an unbearably bright light in its twitching eyes. I’m questioning myself. Why do I do this? (Blink-blink.) Even the label, blog, sounds frivolous or unclear, like a cross between “blahblahblah” and fog or bog. Originally, I created the blog (with initial set-up help from my older daughter) so that there was a place where people could find my books and contact me. One of my literary guiding lights, C. M. Mayo, had asked me to guest blog on Madam Mayo after my second book, Stirring the Mirror, came out last August. I needed a site to link to! So, in a way, it forced my hand. On August 13, 2007, the blog was born.

Since the initial days, the blog has evolved into…well, I’m not quite sure what. Essentially, I’ve let it just happen. I don’t want to build a fence around it. I've let it sprawl. To answer my own question why, I’ve come up with the following thoughts:

1. It places me more fully in my life.

2. It marks passage through time, engraving mile markers along the route.

3. It clarifies nebulous thoughts.

4. It’s a commitment to writing and art.

5. It’s an openness to the possibilities of art/creativity in the world, a reaching out to reel in those possibilities, to anchor and join them in a specific place.

6. It’s an exercise in synthesis, a weaving together of threads from reading, poetry , the visual arts, nature, culture, all fleeting experience.

7. It’s an exploration of both reality and dreams.

8. It keeps me looking, thinking, witnessing, reading and rereading, listening, feeling and creating – cinching the ragged edges of the universe a bit closer.

9. I like the casual, rambling style of “essay” (lyric essay?) that I feel free to write here. I like that relaxed autonomy. It lets me experiment with form, with hybrid writing, which I love.

10. I enjoy the communication, the sharing of ideas and information. I love hearing from those who visit the blog, who have other thoughts to add, who make additional connections, who offer suggestions and expand the posts. I like the idea of a network of blogs.

11. And, hey, I like the rare free stuff! Recently, after a brief post about Matsuo Basho, I received an e-mail from the publishers of a new collection of his work, Basho: The Complete Haiku, translated by Jane Reichhold, asking if I’d like a copy. Yes. I now have the lovely hardcover, and will focus on it soon. John Glick of Plumtree Pottery also mailed me a surprise: a beautiful, swirling universe of a ceramic tile. Thanks.

12. Along the same theme, I’ve enjoyed receiving invitations to submit work, or requests to reprint writing and photographs from the blog.

13. I get a thrill out of taking those photographs, then finding the right words to go with them. I like setting up little scenes, going off on tangents, letting inspiration unspool. This is serious fun.

14. Okay, and I savor the “search for the sublime.” Those are the insightful words of Annie Dillard, writing about polar explorers: “They went, I say, partly in search of the sublime, and they found it the only way it can be found, here or there – around the edges, tucked into the corners of the days.” (Teaching a Stone to Talk, p. 41)

After a year, I’m setting no limits on the blog. I’m allowing it an amoeboid existence, the freedom to expand and contract. I’m here, waiting, meandering, open to the unfurling possibilities. I’ll end here with more of Dillard’s wisdom:

“Wherever we go, there can be only one business at hand – that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.”

The final quote is again from Teaching a Stone to Talk, p. 42. The photo of the colorful maple leaf (already?!) was taken –literally – on my road on 8/15/08.