Onitsura wrote this summer hokku:
Evening;
The bellies of trout seen
In the shallows.
This is a “standard” hokku, meaning it has setting, subject, and action. The setting is the evening; the subject is the bellies of the trout; the action is “seen in the shallows.” Of course the real action is the movement of the trout that shows their light underside.
This is a very “Yin” verse. The evening is yin, the shallows are yin, the light bellies of the trout are a yin “color.” The weaker Yang element is in the remaining light of day and in the movement of the fish.
David
