In old hokku cherry blossoms were so prominent that they were often not even called cherry blossoms in writing. Just the word hana — “blossoms” — by itself came to mean cherry blossoms.
Conversely, the word cherry (sakura) used to describe the tree was also simply interpreted as a cherry tree in blossom. Those were two of the important conventions of old hokku.
We could add to that the deep significance of the brief blooming period of the cherry trees, which caused the mention of cherry blossoms alone to evoke a feeling of brevity and transience in the reader — the brevity of youth and beauty, the transience of life. So even though the subject “cherry blossoms” is a spring subject, associated with youth and freshness and beginnings, inherent in it is also the knowledge of the transience of such things, the impermanence and fragility of life and happiness.
In the gap
Between rough windy rains —
The first cherry blossoms.
This — by Chora — is a study in contrasts — the strong, blowing rain, and the delicacy of the opening cherry blossoms in the pause between storms. One cannot help being reminded of Shakespeare’s famous lines from Sonnet 18:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May….
Huge crowds would come out to view the cherry blossoms, walking among the blooming trees, as Chora also wrote:
All the people,
Going into blossoms,
Coming out of blossoms.
In that verse, the abundance of people is in keeping with the abundance of the blossoms. The people are dressed in their finery, as the trees are clothed in beautiful blossoms.
Even Issa has this reverent attitude:
Having bathed in hot water
And reverenced the Buddha —
Cherry blossoms!
Issa has prepared himself for the viewing by bathing his body and by purifying his mind.
Bashō is known for his practice of mixing traditional “high” subjects found in the more “poetic” waka with “low” and earthy subjects to make hokku, as here:
Beneath the trees,
Even in the soup and fish salad —
Cherry blossoms.
This kind of verse is a counterbalance to over-romanticizing.
Chora also has a remarkably peaceful verse:
Stillness;
The sound of petals falling
Through the trees.
Literally, he says “of falling petals rubbing.” We could also translate it like this:
Stillness;
The rustle of falling
Cherry blossoms.
Here again we see the importance of contrasting combinations in hokku. The silence is only enhanced by the almost imperceptible rustling of the falling blossoms.
David
HOKKU 