Saryu's haiku

"willow tree"  calligraphy

Without a brush

The willow paints the wind.

               -Saryu

We brushed this haiku in class Tuesday.  My calligraphy here is somewhat willow-like, breeze-lifted.  While we were in class, outdoors there was great wind.  We were under a tornado warning!

Saryu's surname and his lifespan's dates are not known, evidently (unless you know them).   This haiku is from a book from The Art Institute of Chicago,  Zen Haiku, selections and translations by Jonathan Clements.

Gillian's wonderful poem

On the drifting roof
survives a Tsunami dog
hell crossing to sing--


     -Gillian Huang-Tiller
Gillian is brushing up to Issa, which makes her own poem even more layered, wonderful.  Here is Issa (who lived in Japan from 1763 - 1828):


in this world
we walk on the roof of hell
gazing at flowers


     -Issa

returning geese

si bi luo yan

Four leaves of bamboo painted in such a way that they are said to be luo  yan, "like a wild goose alighting."  This is an instruction to painting students, on a page in The Mustard Seed Manual of Painting, in the chapter on Bamboo.  Each time I practice this arrangement, the wild goose/bamboo leaves look different:  sometimes pensive, sometimes free, sometimes a bit gangly!  We have returning geese in our skies every day now, and we can hear their honking above us often before we even see them.  Oh wonderful reunions.

Emerging from

the regions of the moon--

the first wild geese

(Hatsukari ya

tsuki no soba yori

arawaruru)

I came across this haiku, by Miura Chora (1729 - 1780), in a 1995 exhibition book entitled HAIGA by Stephen Addiss.  A haiga, a haiku-painting, by Chora was on the same page with the haiku.  It is lovely, three black geese.  I hope that you and I see this haiga (again) and more of Chora's work someday.