Elizabeth Sankey
I love nature writing and have always been intrigued by the thoughts of poets such as Robert Hass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louise Gluck, and Henry David Thoreau. To explore deeper into the world of nature writing, I have been reading haiku, which hold their roots in nature contemplation and appreciation. The brevity of the haiku seems to symbolically mirror the simple beauty of nature – a lot of emotion is evoked from something that is seemingly very simple, with a meaning that may seem, to the naked eye, very obvious. The haiku also is associated with the nature of meditation, which in itself is a feeling or state of being that can be accessed and felt while immersed in the natural world.
If you love nature writing, explore haiku. Here the five haiku artists that have been considered to be masters, accompanied by three of their haikus to explore:
Yosa Buson
Dawn
(Translated by Robert Hass)
Dawn—
fish the cormorants haven’t caught
swimming in the shallows.
Before The White Chrysanthemum
(Translated by Robert Hass)
Before the white chrysanthemum
the scissors hesitate
a moment.
Early Summer Rain
(Translated by Robert Hass)
Early summer rain—
houses facing the river,
two of them
Matsuo Basho
A Bee
(Translated by Robert Hass)
A bee
staggers out
of the peony.
The Old Pond
(Translated by Robert Hass)
The old pond-
a frog jumps in,
sound of water.
A Snowy Morning
(Translated by Robert Hass)
A snowy morning—
by myself,
chewing on dried salmon.
Kobayashi Issa
A Huge Frog And I
(Translated by Robert Hass)
A huge frog and I,
staring at each other,
neither of us moves.
Summer Night
(Translated by Robert Hass)
Summer night—
even the stars
are whispering to each other.
The Crow
(Translated by Robert Hass)
The crow
walks along there
as if it were tilling the field.
Fukuda Chiyo-ni
a dandelion
(Translated by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi)
a dandelion
now and then interrupting
the butterfly’s dream
cool clear water
(Translated by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi)
cool clear water
and fireflies that vanish
that is all there is…
without voice
(Translated by Gabriel Rosenstock)
without a voice
the heron would disappear –
morning snow
Masaoka Shiki
Mountains In Spring
Mountains in spring
overlapping each other
all round
crimson sunset
crimson sunset
even though clouds
vernal equinox
autumn is leaving
autumn is leaving
tugging each others’ branches
two pine trees