INK and Calligraphy n Inktober

Inktober is here again ! 

So this months themes will be the beauty of ink in painting and calligraphy. 

My hopefully not too blurry photo is a page from a book showing xing shu calligraphy by Cai Xiang 

The book is Zhou Kexi  The Art of Chinese Calligraphy 2009 

Haiku - Watch those Suffixes

HAIKU - WATCH THOSE SUFFIXES 

 #Haiku #japanese #translations #suffixes #Basho 

I was looking for seasonal haiku for November. 

Momiji was a kigo.

This haiku by Basho takes a common phrase and gives it a new resonance.

Tootogaru 

Namida ya somete

Chiru momiji 

literally revering as a feeling not a honorific note that garu suffix

tear(s) emphasis marker color stain dyeing somete from someru 

scattering falling maple and other red autumn leaves late in the season 

Seems simple right yet two other translations I saw of this haiku ignore tootogaru being a verb and the translators seem to have thought he was refering to the Buddhist priest he was visiting.

Tootogaru is a verb!

Referring to an emotion shared about some thing or action.

Yes there may be a pun on the stem being an honorific used especially in its Sino-Japanese as part of titles. 

But note Basho has used the KUN reading and added a suffix that turns verbs and adjectives into verbs!

So how to turn the first line being one verb into a phrase in English that also expresses the feeling?

With reverence ? Revering? Respect? Add we view ?

And whose tears are coloring the fallen leaves ?

See how those two first lines change a standard phrase used with other haiku and waka !

 Our reverent tears are coloring the falling leaves isn't a poem in English but expresses the meaning and context and gets closer but not close enough to the Japanese meaning? 

Or not ? 

One suffix -garu changes the whole haiku! 

Repisted Sep 14 2026 

With a few snall edits abd changes 

Rengetsu and the war dead 2

RENGETSU also wrote another poem about the war dead 

Whose child were they ? 

Kiku mama ni 

Sode koso nurure 

Michi nobe 

Sarasu kabane wa

Ta ga ko naruran 

Hearing reports about recent event

This sleeves of mine are wet with tears

Along the road abandoned 

Corpses pushed to one side like trash

Whose child were they ? 

I have read too much into sarasu but it has more than one meaning

The ta in the last line is a very archaic variant of tare / dare 

RAIN ON AZALEAS

 #Densutejo #sutejo #haiku #azaleas #rain 

RAIN ON AZALEAS

Den Sutejo 1633 - 1698 was a woman haiku poet who was a student of Basho 

 A follower of Pure Land and later Zen Buddhism under Bankei she eventually set up a small nunnery for women.

Nure iro ya

Ame no shita teru 

Himotsutsuji 

wet color ! rain from down / under shining  / princess azalea 

Nure from nuru to paint or coat  Iro - color 

A search for princess azaleas brings up the name of several modern varieties that could quite possibly be hybrids or cultivars from whatever type of japanese azalea is being referred to ?

When you think probably of rain drops on azaleas shining and dripping bear in mind even princesses did not wear much in the way of jewellery and its possible Sutejo is not thinking of beads  but perhaps some expensive imported "watered" silk or satin or brocade over robe and the pattern the rain drops are forming on azaleas both flowers and foliage ? 

Cherry Blossoms are a lesson

#densutejo #haiku #sakura #japanesepoetry

HANA WA YO NO

TAMESHI NI SAKU YA

HITOSAKARI 

Den Sutejo

Flowers for this world 

a lesson their blossoming

Brief prosperity

The translation is mine

(copyright J.Vaux 2022)

Hana is flowers and usually in haiku cherry blossom sakura

Yo here is world not leave

I take the no as being for not of in English 

It can function as both in Japanese

Tameshi can mean example precedent experience test trial 

Saku the verb to blossom 

I think an example being a lesson works best in English due to the final line.

Hitosakari hito plus sakari is one of those words that could be translated by a whole sentence! Something that prospers flourishes is at its best just once or for a brief time.

Sakari is probably from the verb sakaru rather than saku.

This seems to be a choice invoking the word sakura without actually using it?

One translator has this as temporary prosperity but I hope brief is allowable and its usage along with lesson actually enabled me to have it be meaningful in English and follow the 5 - 7 - 5 format of Japanese!

the moss path

The Moss Path 

#RENGETSU 

Furu dera no 

Koke ji wa ato mo 

Nakari keri

Yona yona goto ni 

Tsuki wa toe domo 

Literally 

Old temple of

Moss path subject remains though 

No more / gone away

Nb 2 verbs nakari plus keri  completely 

night night every ni as time marker 

Moon toe seems to be an abbreviated form of hitoe only 

Domo possibly adverb here or idea of moon as only companion 

My translation 

At the old temple 

Only a trace left

Of the moss path

Night after night

However the Moon visits 

Some further notes

 nakaru not to be 

Keri is not a filler word to complete the syllable count here but suggests the disappearance of the path under moss is recent ? 

Moss can grow very quickly 

While there is a now famous moss temple this could have been any of dozens of smaller temples up in the hills around Kyoto 

Perhaps its the rainy season and the priest or gardener monk put off clearing the path 

It seems Rengetsu glimpsed the path by moonlight ? 

Perhaps she was hoping to moon view or perhaps that temple banned women even nuns ? 

Thoughts on Citrus and Orange Blossom

Thoughts on Citrus 

A favorite theme of Japanese poetry is the scent of orange blossom specifically the scent of Tachibana which doesnt actually have edible fruit.

But like the rest of the world the Japanese got their citrus fruits from China. 

While the ancestors of most of the many varieties of citrus fruit seem to derive from one or two or three species so closely genetically similar they could be crossed by accident or intent to make fertile hybrids it seems to have been Chinese gardeners and orchardists who developed Citrons  Buddhas Hand Yuzu Mandarins Bitter Oranges Sweet Oranges Lemons Limes Pomelos Tangerines Kumquats and more.

Oh and the Mediterranean citrus fruits probably reached Europe via the Arabs importing seed or trees from India and China or hybridizing those imports with a local variant of the Citron.

Those Japanese and other orchardists in California ?

Those varieties are hybrids.

Enjoying a so called sumo fruit or tangelo or a blood orange?

Thank some ancient traveller from SE Asia who brought the seeds or fruit to China !