Human Nature
Liza Dalby, in her wonderful book East Wind Melts The Ice: A Memoir of the Seasons, translates an Issa poem: Hatsuyuki wo imaimashii to yube kana:
First snowfall
a nuisance
by evening
Kobayashi Issa (1810)
We can’t help but take things for granted. Art prevents us from falling into the ennui of assuming that things are mundane. It helps us find the moment to actualize the particulars that are going on around us.
This haiku maximizes simplicity in each line. “First” projects us into an alerted consciousness. Then the ubiquitous turn with the word “nuisance” which anoints the custodial “first” with an awful curse. Suddenly we are in limbo. Then we have “evening”, a softened likelihood of demured acquiescence. These three movements like those in music create an impression and a rendition or translation of what it means to be human. Words are used in such a way that they are suggestive in a collective way.
