Category: Rays Haibun

A Winter Renewal with Issa

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 3 Comments

| Comments on Issa’s Haiku | A Few Haiku by Issa |

Issa and I have resided in this remote Ontario cabin for a month now. He speaks to me through his writing and accompanies me on my walks. I speak to him by writing about his poetry. Today, he’s lecturing me on compassion:

don’t worry spiders
I keep house
casually
~ Issa

So instead of engaging in my usual spider mayhem by employing the broom as a weapon of web destruction, I try to keep spidy and friends at a comfortable distance as I write this haibun and commentary based on an excerpt from Issa’s travel journal, Oraga Haru.

Finished writing for the day, I don snowshoes for a walk. The wildlife tracks are numerous: fox, deer, coyote, porcupine, rabbit, squirrel, endearing tiny tracks, and for the first time in a long while, wild turkey . . . and I wonder how a wild turkey would taste . . . 

don’t worry turkeys
I hunt
quite ineptly
~ ray rasmussen (after Issa)

Back in the cabin, the radio informs me about the corona virus pandemic. And Issa shares some of the angst of his era …

in this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers
~ Issa

It’s winter, Issa, no flowers here. Will this leaf hanging from a small shrub do? Today I’m capturing images of the bluish tree shadows cast by the setting sun. I can’t help but feel remiss in my compassion for humanity while enjoying winter’s sublime beauty. 

in this world,
a virus plagues our minds,
gazing at tree shadows
~ ray rasmussen (after Issa)

I look out at the maple, ash and oak trees, all stripped of their leaves, and see myself, self-isolated, stripped of friends and obligations, and yet some weathered leaves have remained through winter on the beech trees, just as warm memories of friends and family have remained in my heart while away.

And so Issa shows me a way through adversity:

what good luck!
bitten by
this year’s mosquitoes too
~ Issa

Thank you, Issa mentor-friend . . .

what good luck!
yet another day refreshed
by frigid winds
~ ray rasmussen (after Issa)

~ end ~

Notes

The haiku by Issa are translations by Robert Hass. My 3-line poems are modelled on Issa’s.

The commentary on Issa’s haibun that I referenced in the haibun above appears as a feature in A Hundred Gourds 3:3 June 2014.

Below is an excerpt (with a few modifications) about the life of Kobayashi Issa taken from David G. Lanoue’s Haiku Guy website. If you’d like to know more about the poet that many Japanese think of as their favourite haiku master or peruse many of Lanoue’s translations of Issa’s haiku, the Haiku Guy website is the place to visit.

Koybayashi Issa (1763-1828) practiced the art of haiku (then called haikai) as he wandered the length and breadth of Japan. Though his real name was Kobayashi Yatarô, he chose Issa (Cup-of-Tea) as his haiku name. He also referenced himself as “Shinano Province’s Chief Beggar” and “Priest Cup-of-Tea of Haiku Temple.” His work was imbued with Buddhist themes: sin, grace, trusting in Amida Buddha, reincarnation, transience, compassion, and the joyful celebration of the ordinary. ~ David G. Lanoue (statement modified a bit by Ray Rasmussen)

Day’s End: a Visit to Slickhorn Canyon

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ Leave a comment

Here, in this remote, twisted canyon, countless generations of aboriginal puebloan peoples lived. One thousand years ago, they faced a 100-year drought, and lost out to it. It’s likely that some farmers became nomads, raiding the produce of others who had struggled on; likely there were skirmishes in which one family battled another for survival.

scattered pot shards
all that remains of a
nameless family

I rest in an alcove’s shade near crumbling walls of stone and mud located high on a sandstone cliff. Ghostlike handprints are painted above the doorway. Below is the wash whose intermittent waters fed their small plot. Where corn and squash once grew, there’s nothing but cactus.

I listen to the wind whispering, imagine it’s them speaking of their failing crops while sharing a scant evening meal.

I don’t know who these tears are for.

sheltering in
the broken walls
a whiptail lizard

Notes: Published in Haibun Today 5:4 December 2011

This haibun was inspired by the chinese poet Du Fu’s “Days End”. I used his simple structure and put in my on theme related to my visits to the (sometimes intact) ruins left by the ancestral puebloans of the four-corners region of the United States.

Conversations with Issa: A Haibun

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ Leave a comment


I’ve resided in a remote Ontario cottage for several weeks. Yesterday, a blizzard was blowing and so I stayed in and enjoyed conversing with Issa via the medium of his translators’ books. As I read and write notes, I notice a particularly ominous spider web and remember that Issa offers this haiku for consideration . . .

Don’t worry spiders
I keep house
casually
~ Issa

And instead of engaging in my usual spider mayhem by employing the broom as a weapon of web destruction, I keep my eye on the spider and move my desk a comfortable distance away while I continue to read Issa’s travel journal, Oraga Haru (The Spring of My Life).

Today the sun is out and I don snowshoes and come across numerous tracks: wild turkey, fox, deer, and porcupine . . . and, again, recalling Issa’s haiku, mentally compose derivatives. This is one I felt came close, since it closely replicates Issa’s, yet has my own context.

Don’t worry turkeys
I hunt
ineptly
~ after Issa

As Issa and I move through a mixed hardwood forest we come across a wildflower meadow, which brings to mind a walk last summer with Nancy, my partner, whom I’m missing.

Issa offers these thoughts on flower gazing . . .

We walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers
~ Issa

No wildflowers here in winter, Master Issa, but I’m taking photographs of the long blue-grey tree & shrub shadows cast by the setting sun. And yes, I agree, photographing scenes is akin to enjoying flowers while ignoring humankind’s woes. And, having confessed, I went about building my own version of Issa’s haiku.

We live in a world of chaos,
while building snowmen
~ after Issa

On my last evening with Issa, I look out at the leafless trees, and think about how for a month I’ve shed routines, obligations, news reports and friends – no phone or email here – and felt the dual pains of loneliness and regrets.

And Issa, I know from the biographies of your life, you had many painful experineces to overcome, and I read that you offered your thoughts on transcendence:

What good luck!
Bitten by
This year’s mosquitoes too.
~ Issa

True enough, Issa, may I call you ‘friend’. Although bitter cold, this has been a good winter retreat for beauty, your companionship and contemplation of your sense of compassion and thoughts about transcendence.

What good luck!
Chilled by
This winter’s biting cold too.
~ after Issa

afterword:

I wrote this piece with the view in mind that it would do more for me to try to write haiku (and haibun for that matter) with Issa’s work as a model than to simply enjoy reading Issa’s work and leave it at that. While I like some of my derivative haiku above, I don’t like all of them. While I think Issa’s last haiku, for example, works, I don’t think my derivative is as accessible as is the irony in his. And, I’m pretty certain that if the editors of a haiku journal looked at my derivatives without having known about or ever seen any of Issa’s work, they’d not accept my three haiku derivatives as good enough to publish. But, after all, Issa wasn’t appreciated in his day by the other prominent haiku masters and pundits of his day.

What about haiku orthodoxy. If you scour the Internet for the ‘what is’ and ‘how to’ of haiku, a common pronouncement is that you mustn’t personify animals and inanimate objects. Did you notice that Issa is breaking that “rule”? He’s personifying spiders by speaking to them. His second haiku also breaks the “rules.” It’s more a philosophical musing than a focus on immediate images drawn from his environment. His third haiku is a clever bit of wit, what some would call a ‘ditty’ or ‘witticism.” And thus some editors will insist it’s a senryu, a haiku in form, but not a pure haiku … it’s more focused on humour and sentiment than the natural world.

Here’s a comparison of a haiku of mine that was published in Modern Haiku that used some of the same natural context, but that the editor accepted as focused on the natural world.

monkshood bloom –
the whine of mosquitoes
seems diminished

Both mention mosquitoes, but Issa’s strikes me as a bit removed from nature and, again, more of a philosophical musing.

Isn’t derivative writing also a bad thing?

If you’re interested in this idea that you can expand your own writing repertoire by modelling the work of other writers (and acknowledging that you’ve done so), you might be interested in my article on the subject that appeared originally in Contemporary Haibun Online: The Role of Modelling in Haibun Composition.

notes:

The haibun was previously published in the A Hundred Gourds journal.

The haiku in italics are by Kobayashi Issa (Trans. Robert Hass).

If you enjoy Issa’s haiku, a website I often visit is David G. Lanoue’s “Haiku of Kabayashi Isssa.”

Read an excerpt from Issa’s haibun journal and commentaries on his style.

The two tranlations of Oraga Haru I read and relied on are: Sam Hamil, Kobayashi issa: The Spring of my Life and Selected Haiku; Nobuyuki Yuasa, The Year of My Life: A Translation of Issa’s Oraga Haru.

Red Licorice

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 1 Comment

. . .  if they fail to express what is in their own minds,
what is the use, no matter how many poems they compose!
~ Ryokan

The doorbell rings. On the porch, standing in a downpour, is a very wet girl in baggy clothes.  Her hair is mouse-brown with red and green streaks, her face festooned with shiny bits of metal and orange lipstick and an alarming red rash.

She can’t be selling Girl Guide cookies. What’s this about?

“Yes,” I say.

“Hi, I’m Lisa, Janey’s friend. Is she home?” She leans in trying to peek around me.

Janey’s friend, uh oh! Why is she here?

Janey rushes up to the door. “Dad, this is Lisa. She’s the one I told you about.” Her voice lowers. “You know . . . from rehab.”

Lisa? Maybe late teens? Maybe Crystal Meth? Was she Janey’s special friend who shared red licorice and TV in rehab?

“Hi Lisa, come in,” I say with little enthusiasm.

Head down, Lisa enters, mumbles “thanks.”

Janey jumps in again: “Dad, I said she could come over. She needs to get away from her boyfriend, like I needed to, you know, get away from Johnie, so I could get clean.”

Just a boyfriend? maybe a pimp? a drug dealer? Violent? Will he show up here looking for her? Damnit! Janey promised to stay away from those street kids.

Reading my silence as leading to a “no”,  Janey jumps in again: “Dad, Lisa’s got nowhere to go. Can’t we help her?” said in the same wheedling voice she had used for getting a second bedtime story.

For how long? What about her parents? Why not rehab? Or a shelter? And what are those red spots? Hives? Measles?

“Lisa, Tha’s quite a rash, you have,” I say. Are you feeling okay?”

Janey says: “Dad, they’re just Speed bumps, meth does that,” she explains, with the same authority as when she identifies the birds that come to the feeder she put up in our backyard, trying to help them through the winter.

Janey has always been a rescuer. I’ve encouraged her, thinking that if she cares for something or someone else, maybe she’ll begin to care for herself. Maybe this is an opportunity?

pouring rain,
and also pouring in
so many maybes and what-ifs.
yet has a bit of hope
also seeped in?

who said,
“hope is a thing with feathers
that perches in the soul?”
perhaps someone, like me
who needs to hope again.

“I was just fixing dinner,” I say to them.  “Janey, why not take Lisa to your room and get her some dry clothes and then let’s sit down, have dinner and talk.”

Much later, after many conditions stipulated and seemingly agreed to, we’ve gone to a store where the girls bought the necessities: hair and tooth brushes, underwear, tops and pants. And that night, they retreat to the TV room, and I give them the bag of red licorice I bought for them while they were shopping.

just two girls,
yet so much more,
sunk deep in the sofa
giggling while watching TV
and sharing red licorice

a morning walk
with the black dog.
maybe the spring flowers are up,
Dare I hope for
the flash of a yellow warbler?

About the Author

Ray Rasmussen

Ray Rasmussen resides in Edmonton and Halton Hills, Canada. His haibun, haiga, haiku and articles have appeared in the major print and online haiku journals and anthologies.

Chin Down

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 6 Comments

My daughter’s ashes are now spread in places she loved, although I have a hard time remembering when she loved anything but drugs, and lived anywhere but on the streets.

We did our best, I’ve often thought to myself and even said aloud as we spread her ashes in a mountain meadow. You could have done better, another voice always answers.

“Keep your chin up,” a friend recently said, “You’re not responsible for her choices in life.”

I read that the first printed reference of “keep your chin up” comes from a 1900 edition of a Pennsylvania newspaper. The remainder of the quip is, “Don’t take your troubles to bed with you – hang them on a chair with your trousers or drop them in a glass of water with your teeth.”

teeth full of
caps and fillings.
those restive nights after
viewing photos of the places
she loved

Published in Contemporary Haibun Online, 19:3, 2023.

What Are You Up To?

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 5 Comments

The sun’s rays filter through a stand of spruce where twenty horses are hitched. As we unpack them, Dave, a lanky outfitter, and I chat about the grizzly we spotted earlier in the day and how the horses are holding up.

men’s talk –
the smell of
sweat and manure

Dave asks, “Ray, what are you up to these days?”

I’m embarrassed to say that I receive a monthly check without having to work, that I no longer wake up by an alarm clock, that I feel guilty about those who have to rush breakfast and fight traffic, that I view my avocations as luxuries in a world stressed by war and poverty.

Finally, I say: “Well, I write a bit and do some photography.”

Dave replies, “Oh, do you sell your photographs?”

 “Some, but not enough to pay for the camera.”

So there it is. I can’t simply sit on the back stoop and admire the lawn growing, the shadows lengthening.

“Well,” Dave grunts as he hefts a 60-pound load off the horse, “must be nice to have time to pursue your interests.”

How many times have I heard that I now have time to be the writer I always wanted to be, to travel as much as I want?

In younger times I was a jock, a professional, a dad, a leader and a teacher. Now I’m a retiree, a senior, a grey beard, all of which carry undertones of geezer, hints of useless.

The horses don’t like being corralled, and I don’t either. When we release them, they race out into the meadow, roll in the black loam, shake and begin to graze.

I wish this rawness I feel could as easily be shaken off.

monkshood bloom –
the whine of mosquitoes
seems diminished

Note: Haiku first published in Modern Haiku. Haibun with haiku later published in Lynx Haiku Journal.

Best Intentions

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 8 Comments

| Recently Published Haibun by Ray Rasmussen |

image credit: unknown

Hell isn’t merely paved with good intentions:
it’s walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.
~ Aldous Huxley

We’re dining on ginger beef and cod in black bean sauce, flavored with catch-up chat. My friend Kathy, leans toward me and says, “I think you’re just about to have an important birthday. Yes?”

I tell her my age and, excited now, she says: “I thought so. Why don’t I organize a party to celebrate your milestone?”

Milestone? The word was coined for the stone obelisks placed by those great builders, the Romans, to mark distances along the many roads branching out from Rome.

age-worn stone 
the emperor’s name 
unreadable

“If you set up a milestone gathering, have a good time and say hello to everyone for me,” I reply.

“What – you wouldn’t want to celebrate with your friends?” she asks.

“It’s the idea that I’ve done something extraordinary to reach my present age, like conquering a new territory, and thus deserve a tribute where I parade my army, plunder, and slaves through streets lined with cheering citizens. A milestone party would invite congratulatory comments like ‘You’ve made it to a magic age,” lead to questions like ‘What’s on your bucket list – going sky diving?”

“Do you mean you think they’d not be sincere?” she asks.

“When I look at someone my age, even when they’re still mentally and physically active, I feel a sadness about their diminishment. On my last hiking trip, a middle-aged companion said, ‘Ray, I sure hope I can be as active as you when I’m your age.’ Tongue in cheek, and secretly irritated, I replied, “I’m confused. I’m only 35.” I knew it was intended as a compliment, but I was thinking, There are downsides to reaching my age, the small infirmities that, like weathered milestones, ruthlessly mark diminishment’s path.

“Okay,” she replies, “no milestone-theme party, but I’d like to do something.”

“Agreed. I’d enjoy a gathering celebrating everyone, each person who wants sharing what’s going on in their own lives”

my winter is just this – 
a pair of goldfinches 
still visiting the feeder*

“You’d not want any comments on your birthday?” she asks.

“If people feel they must say something, I’d prefer honesty, preferably with humor, like Hal’s greeting the other day when I met him for coffee: ‘Damn, but you look grizzled, shaggy white beard, wild hair. Looks like you’ve been in a wind storm.’”

She laughs. “I’ll bet it was you looking in the mirror talking to yourself.”

You’re right, I looked and said: “I’m happy to be here and yet I feel guilty about having my cosmic dice roll so many 7s.”

awaiting cremation –
birthday cards line
the fireplace mantel

Notes:

Published in Presence, 2020.

* The second haiku is after after Issa’s: my spring is just this – / a single bamboo shoot / a willow branch

Strings Tied in Knots

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 1 Comment

| Recently Published Haibun by Ray Rasmussen |

In her poem “The Flaw,” Molly Peacock writes, “The best thing about a hand-made pattern in a weaving is the flaw.” She suggests that a red string standing out in a blue-toned carpet weave could be likened to a red bird flying into a blue sky.

My partner is a talented fabric artist, and so I read Peacock’s poem to her and ask, “What do you see as my red strings, if any?”

After a long pause, she replies, “Your swearing – when you get frustrated and curse at something like your computer when it’s not working. No one in my family ever swore.”

“Is there a way you could turn my rarely exercised flaw into a red bird soaring into a blue sky?” I suggest.

“No, for me it’s more like a screeching Bald Eagle with talons extended as it swoops down on a lamb,” she says.

I mention that Peacock wrote that a flaw can be thought of as a reaching out, as the string saying, in effect, “I’m alive, discovered by your eye.”

“Oh, I do know you’re alive when you shout and swear,” she replies.

“What if I tell you that the ancient Persians deliberately put a flaw in their carpets because only God is entitled to be perfect and it would be arrogant for a mortal to aspire to perfection?”

 “I’d not worry too much about being close to perfection.”

couples counseling –
picking strings from
my frayed sweater

This is a revision of a piece published in Frogpond.

Molly Peacock’s wonderful poem, “The Flaw,” can be found here -> link

The Ask. A haibun by Ray Rasmussen

~ Ray Rasmussen ~ 3 Comments

| Recently Published Haibun by Ray Rasmussen |

image by r. rasmussen

The Ask

My lover asks me:
"What is the difference
between me and the sky?"
          ~ Nizar Qabbani

After reading Qabbani’s poem together, my lover smiles and asks: “What’s the difference between me and the sky?”

The difference, my love, is when in spring, you guide me to view the purple crocus poking above winter’s leaf litter.

And when in summer, you put your canoe paddle aside to pick up your camera, and my eyes follow your gaze to a tiny bonsai-shaped spruce growing from a sawn stump in an Algonquin Lake.

And when in fall, you see ATV tracks that have scoured the forest path we love to walk, and I see your eyes flood with pain.

And when in winter you hush me and stop to gaze at deer tracks in the snow.

And when today, you gasp and your face lights up when a red fox gracefully crosses Moss Stone creek on an inches-wide log that no human would dare walk.

And when minutes later, a second fox follows, bark-yips, receives a bark-yip in return, and together they cavort in spring’s warming sun.

All that, my love, is how you are of the Earth, and different from the sky.

warming sun –
her hand slips
into mine

Epigraph is from Nizar Qabbani’s poem, “My Lover Asks Me,” translated by B. Frangieh & C. Brown.

Published in Cattails: The Journal of the United Haiku and Tanka Society, April 2020