By the traditional Japanese way of looking at the seasons, we are already near the end of autumn. At around this same time 227 years ago, Issa noticed the closing autumn and wrote the following
天広く地ひろく秋もゆく秋ぞ
ten hiroku chi hiroku aki mo yuku aki zo
vast sky
vast earth
autumn also is passing
—Issa
(trans. David LaSpina[1])
The idea that everything is always changing is a core teaching of Buddhism. As much as we might wish things would stand still for awhile so we could enjoy them longer, Buddhism teaches that everything is changing, like a river, and trying to cling to any one thing is like trying to take a handful of watch to keep it forever. Issa was very dedicated to his faith and he would have embraced this.
The season word here is yuku aki, "autumn is passing". It's a season word for late autumn which is typically around Oct 8 to Nov 6, give or take a day or two since the traditional lunar calendar doesn't match entirely with our current one.
Autumn has long been considered a season for melancholy. It is a time for endings and the fading of thing. In addition to the symbolism, we should also consider that in premodern times before electric heating, winter was a much more difficult season to face.
At any rate, there are many season words that express this sadness. The Heian court long ago decided that autumn was when mono no aware was at its highest level, and that is a tradition that has mostly stuck. (The Heian period was 794–1185).
Maybe the best example of that is this anonymous poem from the eleventh century poetry anthology Shūi Wakashū (拾遺和歌集):
春はたゞ花のひとへに咲くばかり物の哀は秋ぞまされる
haru wa tada hana no hitoe ni saku bakari
mono no aware wa aki zo masareru
in spring
nothing but
the blooming of cherry trees;
but when it comes to mono no aware
autumn is far superior
Mono no aware is something like the sadness of the transience of life or a bittersweet awareness of the impermanence of the world. Fleeting youth, watching your kids grow so quickly, fading romance, the changing seasons, the sakura blooming but falling just days later, the fading of nature with autumn. It is a sadness yet it is not a thing to be mourned, but rather appreciated because that is reality and it is beautiful.
By looking at the changing sky and earth as he acknowledges that autumn is nearly gone, Issa is following a long tradition in Japanese poetry.
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| 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. |
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