The white pine, conscripted by the Royal Navy in the 18th century, was first discovered by the British in groves 400 years old and counting. Some individual trees reached over 200 feet in height. Later, in 1821, Timothy Dwight published Travels in New England and New York: “There is reason to fear that this noblest of all vegetable productions will be unknown in its proper size and splendor to future inhabitants of New England.”
Landscapes bear traces, and in the light of change traces are transformed into presences. How many nights by the river have I indulged free-ranging melancholy by staring into the dark waves. Only the moon sometimes competes for my attention.
autumn moon—
where white pines soared
the black Piscataqua
Friday, September 21, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Sound of Water
On Basho’s Frog Haiku
The old pond;
a frog jumps in—
the sound of water.
This haiku, like all good haiku, risks banality. No lure of the sublime here! The plop of a frog in an old stagnant pond.
So what?
In the first line (the fragment), consciousness directs its attention to this thing – “the old pond.” In the second two lines (the base), there seem to be two more “things” (frog and sound); but it’s also true that the “thing world ” of pond and frog is eclipsed by an event. As it disappears into the pond, the frog is replaced by the sound of water.
The ambiguity of this image—the sound of water -- is the crux of the poem.
The sound of water—is that a definite thing (like a frog or a pond)? Water makes many sounds, depending on the situation. Again, why is this sound remarkable? Or is it, as suggested by the bare phrase “sound of water,” remarkable in its lack of specificity?
An essay in Basho’s Poetic Spaces by Horikiri Minoru explores the range of sounds expressible in this haiku. As it turns out, some commentators have argued that the “sound of water” in Basho’s haiku is silence, that frogs don’t make much noise if any when they jump in. We are also reminded of other haiku by Basho “about silence.”
There seems to be an irreducible ambiguity in this haiku. There’s no definitive interpretation of the resulting image. The consciousness of the reader is suspended, unresolved; the virtual subject of the poem is consciousness embodied by the “sound of water.” Interpretation of haiku depend, like the interpretation of a Mozart sonata, on the performance and the performer, which is why the structure is so important, for it is ultimately the structure which provides the final image of “just this sound” for interpretation.
What happens in this haiku is that two heavy, relatively big things – an old pond and a frog – are displaced in the consciousness of the reader by a thin, light thing – the sound made by the frog jumping into the pond. Just that sound – whatever it is, with the proviso that “just that sound of water” indicates a RANGE of possible noises, from plop! to silence.
The event of the haiku happens in between the observing, embodied consciousness and the thing itself, the old pond. The in-between dimension includes the participation of consciousness, in all its ambiguity, as suggested by “the sound of water.” This in-between is a realm of ontological ambiguity, a realm where the being-thing attended to – the old pond -- and our experience of it are eclipsed by a new experience of embodiment, the experience afforded to us by the haiku. This experience is an “image” but not an image on the page. This experience -- of this image-- is marked by a sense of space, distance, luminosity. This experience is the fabled ah-ha! moment of haiku tradition.
Haiku is often said to reveal essence, but that cliche needs to be understood. Here’s one way to understand it. The “transcendence” of the ah-ha moment is mediated by the structure of the event, and that structure is a triangle. The three sides: embodied consciousness (the “viewer”), the reality (pond, frog, sound of water), and language. In philosophical terms, the nodes are consciousness, essence, and concept. This triadic structure, it should be noted, floats in a sea of transcendent being-as-act.
On the literary level, the haiku engages with various intertexts – e.g., other haiku on the topic of silence such as those mentioned by Horiki Minoru. The simplicity of haiku language should not obscure the fact that it is language, and that the haiku experience is inseparable, in the end, from language. Indeed, it would appear that this “complex” – language-consciousness-reality—is the mother of all structures. (See Eric Voegelin, vol 18, Collected Works, pp 28-33). One cannot get outside it but a great haiku like Basho’s frog haiku illuminates it from within.
The old pond;
a frog jumps in—
the sound of water.
This haiku, like all good haiku, risks banality. No lure of the sublime here! The plop of a frog in an old stagnant pond.
So what?
In the first line (the fragment), consciousness directs its attention to this thing – “the old pond.” In the second two lines (the base), there seem to be two more “things” (frog and sound); but it’s also true that the “thing world ” of pond and frog is eclipsed by an event. As it disappears into the pond, the frog is replaced by the sound of water.
The ambiguity of this image—the sound of water -- is the crux of the poem.
The sound of water—is that a definite thing (like a frog or a pond)? Water makes many sounds, depending on the situation. Again, why is this sound remarkable? Or is it, as suggested by the bare phrase “sound of water,” remarkable in its lack of specificity?
An essay in Basho’s Poetic Spaces by Horikiri Minoru explores the range of sounds expressible in this haiku. As it turns out, some commentators have argued that the “sound of water” in Basho’s haiku is silence, that frogs don’t make much noise if any when they jump in. We are also reminded of other haiku by Basho “about silence.”
There seems to be an irreducible ambiguity in this haiku. There’s no definitive interpretation of the resulting image. The consciousness of the reader is suspended, unresolved; the virtual subject of the poem is consciousness embodied by the “sound of water.” Interpretation of haiku depend, like the interpretation of a Mozart sonata, on the performance and the performer, which is why the structure is so important, for it is ultimately the structure which provides the final image of “just this sound” for interpretation.
What happens in this haiku is that two heavy, relatively big things – an old pond and a frog – are displaced in the consciousness of the reader by a thin, light thing – the sound made by the frog jumping into the pond. Just that sound – whatever it is, with the proviso that “just that sound of water” indicates a RANGE of possible noises, from plop! to silence.
The event of the haiku happens in between the observing, embodied consciousness and the thing itself, the old pond. The in-between dimension includes the participation of consciousness, in all its ambiguity, as suggested by “the sound of water.” This in-between is a realm of ontological ambiguity, a realm where the being-thing attended to – the old pond -- and our experience of it are eclipsed by a new experience of embodiment, the experience afforded to us by the haiku. This experience is an “image” but not an image on the page. This experience -- of this image-- is marked by a sense of space, distance, luminosity. This experience is the fabled ah-ha! moment of haiku tradition.
Haiku is often said to reveal essence, but that cliche needs to be understood. Here’s one way to understand it. The “transcendence” of the ah-ha moment is mediated by the structure of the event, and that structure is a triangle. The three sides: embodied consciousness (the “viewer”), the reality (pond, frog, sound of water), and language. In philosophical terms, the nodes are consciousness, essence, and concept. This triadic structure, it should be noted, floats in a sea of transcendent being-as-act.
On the literary level, the haiku engages with various intertexts – e.g., other haiku on the topic of silence such as those mentioned by Horiki Minoru. The simplicity of haiku language should not obscure the fact that it is language, and that the haiku experience is inseparable, in the end, from language. Indeed, it would appear that this “complex” – language-consciousness-reality—is the mother of all structures. (See Eric Voegelin, vol 18, Collected Works, pp 28-33). One cannot get outside it but a great haiku like Basho’s frog haiku illuminates it from within.
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