Susumu Takiguchi

Special to The Daily Yomiuri

Last month we looked at the independence of mind, essence of femininity and subjective human involvement with nature vividly demonstrated by the poems of Takako Hashimoto (1899-1963). We shall continue to examine this fascinating haijin as she pursues big questions relentlessly through haiku, including the ultimate subject, death.


numa koramu/to suruni nami-kaze/tachi doshi


the lake is about to freeze
but the waves whipped by the wind
never cease to get up


What a vivid depiction of the chilling landscape! However, in her landscape of life was Takako not talking about death in the shape of a frozen lake and life's woes and vicissitudes in the shape of waves?

In Western haiku, similes and metaphors are loathed like a plague whereas they have been an integral part of Japanese haiku, and if skillfully employed, can be a powerful tool. Granted, direct reference to specific things may be highly recommended in haiku-writing, but this does not necessarily negate simile or metaphor. In this haiku, everything it says is direct reference to specific things on the surface, but it leaves rich room for metaphorical imagination.


cho hachi no/goto sekkei ni/shinaba to omou


like butterflies and wasps
I hope I would die
in the snowy valley


Takako was unusually conscious of death and wrote many haiku talking about her own dying. Snow for her was something sacred and pure where love, beauty and peace could all be sublimated into a true "singularity."

te ni torite/shicho wa karuku/nari ni keri


picked on my hand,
ah, the dead butterfly has
become light


Dead butterflies often feature in Takako's haiku. That these are not the usual kind of casual observations of nature is more than obvious. The important point of this haiku is the word "light" and the author's surprise at and thoughts about discovering that the light insect felt even lighter still in her hand. Death, she may have wished, makes everything light and then, into nothingness, the ultimate removal of all worldly burdens.


taifu-ka/shizuka ni ine-te/shi ni chikaki


typhoon gone...
lying quietly, I feel closer
to death


Japan is a country that has more than its fair share of natural disasters. Typhoons kill. Faced with them, people will become helpless as they become resigned to the idea of death. If they come during the night, they are more scary and menacing. For a sensitive person like Takako how much more so they can be!


tsuma koe ba/ware ni shine-yo to/aoba-zuku


I miss my husband;
and this owl tuwhoos to me
that I should die too


A death wish and the joy of life mingle delicately in Takako's sensibility heightened by the loss of her husband. This is especially so during the night when he becomes conspicuous by his eternal absence, and all she has is silence and the intermittent hoot of the owl.


kata-kake no/uchi ni iki-shite/hito no shi e


inside my shawl
I breathe and walk
to his funeral


After the death of her husband, Takako sought help and solace from his elder brother. Now this brother-in-law had also passed away, bringing more grief to her. She needed someone's shoulder to cry on and a tower of strength to lean against, a sentiment captured in the next haiku:


yoru mono no/hoshi-keredo/kabe koru nari


longing for something
to lean against, but the wall
is frozen


hachi mogaku/ikiru tame ni ka/shinu tame ni ka


the wasp struggling...
is it because it wants to live, or
is it because it is dying?


Even an insect's small behavior does not escape Takako's heightened consciousness focused on life and death. If we gather her haiku on death together in one place like this, it may look as if she is rather morbid and obsessive. However, the poet was actually dying and there is no sentimentalism or clever metaphysical indulgence in her sensibility.


shi wo nogare/miruku wa amashi/ro wa nukushi


death I escaped...
the milk tastes sweet and
the fireplace feels warm


This haiku is included in her anthology titled Myoju (The End of My Life), published two years after her death. Takako was wandering along the border between life and death.


ikiru wa yoshi/shizuka naru yuki/ isogu yuki

it's good
to be alive; quiet snow
and hasty snow...


Takako had some problem with her heart, and this is one of the two haiku she wrote soon after it happened. The scare was over and she survived back into calmness, which was good enough to turn her attention to ways in which snow fell differently like us humans.

fushite miru/fuyu-tomoshi no hikusa/koko wa waga-ya


from my lying position
the winter light looks low;
it's my home!


Takako was discharged from the hospital on a December day. Compared with high ceilings and the lights of the hospital rooms, the lighting of her house must have looked really low. Her delight at her homecoming is palpable.


kami arai/iki etaru mi ga/shizuku suru


washing my hair...
this body having managed to survive
drips with water


The joy of having a bath at one's own home and simple acts such as washing one's hair take on a new meaning when one is fighting for one's survival. It is not an ordinary body. It is a body being eaten by cancer. The loss of hair or the attack of this disease makes Takako even more tender toward her failing but all-the-more precious body. Here, washing oneself even becomes some kind of spiritual cleansing and the dripping water is a symbol of Takako's pains and agonies being washed away.


mokusei ya/kioku wo shi made/oi-tsumeru


fragrant olive...
I chase my memories right up
to my death


Smells evoke memories instantly. One can smell a fragrant olive a hundred meters away, not knowing where the perfume is coming from. It is not only exquisite but also very strong, so much so that Takako must have felt she could look back on all the events of her life, helped by the fragrance.


yuki no hi no/yoku-shin isshi isshi/ai-shi


snowy day...
my bathing body, I love
each finger, each foot


As was mentioned, Takako suffered from cancer, which eventually ended her life. Her love for life crystalized into this moving depiction of self-love. Though her body was progressively destroyed, her heart may have come to tranquility and some kind of nirvana. To that degree she may have become contented with life after all, as suggested by the next poem:


yuki hageshi/kaki nokosu koto/nanzo ooki


it snows hard...
how could it be enormous what I must
write before dying?


This can be said to be her death poem. Takako wrote all that she wanted to write while alive. On her death bed she had little regrets as she was a chronicler, through haiku, of the time, spirit and emotion of the Japan she happened to live in.

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(Nov. 23, 2006)


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Back to the Death Haiku
http://haikutopics.blogspot.com/2006/06/dead-body-hotoke.html

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