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RE: Playing Dewdrops :: Haiku of Japan #55
Such a wonderful haiku: dewdrops playing! I realize there're a lot of topics about fleeting life and death in Japanese literature.
Such a wonderful haiku: dewdrops playing! I realize there're a lot of topics about fleeting life and death in Japanese literature.
Delightful, isn't it? It's the kind of image you really wouldn't come by unless you were paying close attention to nature, as these haiku poets did.
I agree — lots of life and death in haiku. That is Japan for you. It's a tricky thing to translate actually because we tend to view death differently in the West than they do. That's changed a bit with the Buddhist ideals that have been flowing west ever since the hippie movement, but it is still a difference. There is a wonderful concept here that the Japanese call mono no aware. The wikipedia entry doesn't do the term justice, but it does give a nice overview: Mono no aware