Many years ago while going to school, I lived for a semester in a tiny cabin with a luxuriant morning glory vine clambering embracingly over the low roof, covering it with deep blue trumpet flowers in the fall. Over the years and back in my home state I have kept an eye open for such a perennial morning glory, and a few seasons ago I finally found one. Now every fall I have the green leaves and the same deep blue trumpet flowers appearing. So morning glories blooming mean fall to me.
A couple of centuries ago, Chora (1729-80) wrote:
It blew first
Upon the morning glories –
The autumn wind.
What is it that makes one realize that summer is ending? Sometimes it is a dry leaf that twirls slowly down through the dry air and falls at one’s feet. Sometimes it is the appearance of the colors and hues we associate with autumn, as in my verse
Gold appears
On the tips of the goldenrod;
Summer’s end.
Chora, however, sees it while looking at blooming morning glories. One morning the delicate trumpets are stirred by a wind, and Chora sees it is no longer the wind of summer, but the wind of autumn. It happens just that quickly.
The fall – autumn — is a very significant time for hokku. It has much to teach us about change and impermanence, the transitory nature of all things, including our own lives and thoughts and emotions. In the coming weeks I hope to explore the fall and how it is reflected in hokku. Here is a beginning, a very “autumn” verse by Taigi:
Sweeping them up,
Then not sweeping them up –
The falling leaves.
This shows us the inevitablility of autumn. When the first leaves fall, one goes out to rake or sweep, but eventually the numbers become so great that they are overwhelming. Taigi presents this deepening of autumn with great simplicity and effectiveness.
Note that there is no “subject” mentioned, that is, there is no “I” or “he” or “she.” There is only the action of sweeping and the falling leaves, and this makes the verse very focused and unified, and remarkably expressive of the season.
And here is a verse by Gyôdai in the “standard” form (setting / subject / action):
Autumn mountains;
Here and there
Smoke rises.
It is a very simple verse, which is characteristic of many of the best hokku, and it is very unified.
The setting is autumn mountains. The subject is smoke, and the action is rises (here and there).
We feel a strong connection between autumn and smoke, so the verse has an inherent harmony.
It does not take much to make a good hokku — just an interesting and appropriate event, without frills and without complexity. But one must be able to recognize such an event when it happens! All to often people try to write verses about uninteresting things, or things seen in the same way for the 10,000th time. Of course such hokku fail. That is why we say that hokku are just ordinary things in ordinary words, but seen in a new way.
Copyright 2007
David Coomler
