The camellia blooms very early in the year — earlier even than the plum. It is paradoxical that this flower of early beginnings often best appears in hokku as falling or having fallen — an ending. This shows us the sense of transience that is such an inherent part of hokku. We see that things are always changing, always moving toward their end, even in beginnings.

Bashô wrote:

Falling,
It spilled its water –
The camellia flower.

That is a good example of the objectivity of hokku.   No writer is found in the verse, which gives us only the flower, the water, and the actions of falling and spilling.  Technically, this verse is presented in the “repeated subject” form:

Falling,
IT spilled its water –
The CAMELLIA.

You can see that the subject is mentioned twice, first as “it” and second as the camellia.  This is a very convenient form that is often useful in composing hokku.

But back to beginnings and endings.  We see them both very clearly in this rather unusual verse by Baishitsu:

A camellia blossom fell –
The cock crowed –
Again a camellia blossom fell….

Baishitsu gives us two “endings” (the falling blossoms) separated by a “beginning,” the crowing of the cock that marks the dawn.  And notice particularly how we hear the sound of the cock crowing in the repetition of the hard “c” sounds in the verse in English:

A Camellia blossom fell –
The Cock Crowed –
Again a Camellia blossom fell….

We will see the importance of transience again and again in hokku throughout the seasons.  The camellias bloom and fall, the plum blooms and its blossoms fall, and of course the cherry gives the delicate blossoms that are so evanescent and thus so significant in old and in modern hokku.  These are not symbols in hokku, however — we must see them for what they are, and if we see our own lives in them, that is because we are not separate from the blooming and falling blossoms.

Copyright 2008
David Coomler