 |
| Steven Outram |
The
Skylark
A song
alone
comes
down - and of the skylark
the
last trace is gone.
Ampu
from "An Introduction to Haiku: an anthology
of poems and poets from Basho to Shiki" by Harold G. Henderson
Haiku only seems simple. I know
almost nothing about the tradition, but from the little that I’ve read I’ve
learned that most significant thing of all - I know almost nothing. In the
sense that there are worlds of expression to explore yet. For one thing, that a
poem’s art might be in what is not said, or what is there but not said – that’s
more what I mean. And the Japanese poets are dedicated students of this. It’s
not merely distillation of a thought, it’s getting to that level of writing
where each word is a door swinging open to a new place. When it comes to
poetry, how many words are enough? Is it possible that what our words have lost
is a sense of silence, of falling into depths beyond words? When I read this
haiku – a translation, it’s important to remember (a thousand subtleties have
been lost) – I hear so many different notes. Loss, loneliness, the song (what
is that song - what does it signify?), the element of nature, nature as a foil
for human destinies, the qualities of the skylark – the symbolic nature of the
bird. And this is without knowing any of the cultural language code being
employed. I know so little. I know beauty, though, when I hear it.
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