Friends With the Moon 【Haiku of Japan #24】

in #haiku • 7 years ago (edited)

中々にひとりあればぞ月を友

because
I'm all alone
the moon is my friend
—Buson
(Tr. David LaSpina)

nakanaka ni hitori areba zo tsuki o tomo

Yamamoto.jpg
(woodblock print by Tsuchiya Koitsu)

Buson is not talking about loneliness here; that is, being alone is not a negative thing to him. Rather, it is because he is alone that he's able to become so intimate and familar with the moon. This is an idea that has been revisited so many times in haiku and elsewhere that I'm sure most of you are familar with it. A hundred fifty years hence, half way around the world. Henry David Thoreau would be expressing the same ideas in Walden, writing:

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Words I'm sure Buson would have agreed with.

Don't miss the other great haiku in the Haiku of Japan series!

  1. Traveling to the inn
  2. Childless Woman
  3. Old Dancing Butterfly
  4. Seeing the Moon
  5. Checking the Scarecrow
  6. Skill of Insects
  7. The Spider Lilies
  8. A Thousand Green Mountains
  9. Falling Lead Enlightenment
  10. Lonely Night
  11. Her Day Off
  12. Autumn Crow
  13. Faint Footprints
  14. Alone on the Road
  15. Autumn Begins
  16. Early Morning Moon Viewing
  17. Mistaken for a Scarecrow
  18. The Galactic River
  19. The Love of Cats
  20. Autumn Waterfall
  21. The Thief and the Moon
  22. My Frozen Balls
  23. Saké Waves

❦

Hi there! David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.
#japanese #poetry #japan #writing
7 years ago in #haiku by
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