Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --
 | From burweed By Kobayashi Issa English version by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto
From burweed,
 / Photo by docentjoyce / |
| ============ Thought for the Day: Every effort, the entire pathway, ============ | Here's your Daily Music selection --  Suzin Green & Sura Hearts on Fire |
Hi Omss -
Kobayashi Issa, or simply Issa, is one of the best known and appreciated haiku poets.
Although Issa's life was filled with struggles -- the early death of his mother and later his children, family conflicts, and poverty -- his haiku tend to celebrate the serene joys and simple spiritual moments of life.
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Haiku has such a powerful way of discovering great truth in the details of nature. It is a poetry of metaphor and surprise. Glimpse it for just a moment and you see the macrocosm reflected by the microcosm, the Eternal in the specific.
One should never be too casual or definite in interpreting the meaning of a haiku. It is like a dream; the meaning is felt, it is immediate, and it reflects something of yourself back to yourself. It resists being overly defined. But that won't stop me from suggesting one possible way of understanding this haiku... :-)
This haiku by Issa can be read as a poem of instant enlightenment. Issa is stunned to recognize that from "burweed" -- the mind, the rough, mud-hugging "weed" filled with burrs of self-thought -- such elegant, diaphanous life and freedom -- the awakened self -- can be born.
This begs the question, how can we bring the "butterfly" to birth? First, we need the Winter of spiritual practice and inturning (the gestation within the cocoon). And we must hold fast to the earth (the mud of the weed), to steadiness, to nature. All that is needed then is to simply wait for the new light of Spring to naturally awaken life, growth, transformation.
The sun is out in a cool autumn sky today. Even though it's not the season, I'm sure if I really look I'll discover a butterfly!
Ivan
Poetry Chaikhana Fan Page on Facebook
I've finally created a separate Poetry Chaikhana fan page on Facebook. Several of you have encouraged me to do this in recent months, and I've finally gotten it going. Thanks for all the friendly nudges!
I've maintained a personal page on Facebook for a while, and many of you have already connected with me as Facebook friends, but I'm going to start making more of a distinction between my personal FB page and the new Poetry Chaikhana page. I will soon shift most of my poetry posts over to the Poetry Chaikhana page. That's where you'll find the juiciest poetic explorations and meditative meanderings.
If you're on Facebook, come on over to the new Poetry Chaikhana page and become a fan. I'd love to see the number of fans for the Poetry Chaikhana page really take off. As more and more people "like" Poetry Chaikhana on Facebook, it gets more attention and that draws even more people, helping the Poetry Chaikhana circle to expand.
See you there
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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2010 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.
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