> I recently got a book of haiku by Seishi Yamaguchi. He wrote the
> following haiku in 1926:
>
tookoo ya kyuu-Ro no machi wa ari to nomi
>
> The author translated it as (trying to keep to a 5-7-5 syllable count):
>
> A frozen harbor —
> what was once a Russian town
> there and nothing more.
>
> Here is my literal translation:
>
> tookoo ya
> Frozen harbor —
>
> kyuu-Ro no machi wa
> a former Russian town
>
> ari to nomi
> exists, barely
>
> *ari is a classical form meaning "exists".
>
> "Frozen harbour" is the Winter kigo.
>
> Apparently this is a reference to a remote Northern Japanese island
> that was once occupied by the Russians (I assume in the late 1800's).
> In Seishi's notes he says that there were still some Russians living
> in this old town of Oodomari in 1926. The harbour was frozen hard,
> suffusing the streets of the old Russian town in silence.
>
> ~Vaughn
>
>

Thanks a lot for this contribution, Vaughn.

When I first read your ... ari to nomi ... in my tooth-aching mind I saw

.............. ants and fleas

and thought it was just right for an old Russian harbour town ...


Oodomari
http://www.mikumano.net/meguri/odomari.html

http://www.oodomari.com/

Greetings from Summer in Japan
GABI


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