The Trees are Laughing
This is my third year of having a true winter, of watching the color drain from the trees and fall to the ground, of feeling the heaviness of the rainclouds congregating over my head, of watching the world turn still and grey, waiting with the flowers for the blazing summer sun. Darkness is intrinsic to the cold. Which is why I was so startled to see sanguine red floating in the sky.
Two hundred years ago a new form of poetry was born. Haiku — originally hokku, the opening verse of a poetic form called renga — consists of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables focusing predominantly on natural imagery. Matsuo Basho was a master of this form, describing the seasons as they passed him by. He wrote during Sakoku, the period of Japanese isolationism that lasted for over 200 years. He knew nothing about the Western perception of nature writing, nor how nature writing evolved into humorless, idealized depictions of the environment. He simply wrote what he saw.
Bitter–tasting ice —
Just enough to wet the throat
Of a sewer rat.
Water is often described as neutral, not having a flavor. To describe ice as bitter describes the feeling of the ice on your tongue, how it bites your teeth as you bite into it. The shape of your mouth as it pronounces “biTTer TasTing iCE,” emphasizes the sharp corners of the words; it feels like you could cut yourself with language. It feels like the winter wind cutting through your layers, chilling you solid.
Of all the animals Basho could have chosen to describe — birds, rabbits, foxes, deer — he chose a rat. A sewer rat. Something associated with cities and garbage and disease. Not winter. Not the burning smell of cold air. Not the crisp sound of feet punching through pristine snow strewn fields. A rat who lives through this magnificent season year after year after year. A rat who struggles his way through snow banks, seeking heat near — or in — our houses. A rat who hunts for seeds and crumbs that will sustain him until the spring. A rat who nibbles on ice when it is too cold to find water. This rat partakes in the beauty of nature. Does that not make him beautiful in turn?
Apples clung to the tree. Apples in the middle of winter. The nightly chill must freeze them solid only for them to thaw out as the day progresses — freeze, thaw, repeat. A chunk is missing from one of the apples still diligently hanging on. Perhaps a crow perched on an adjacent branch, twisting its neck around to peck at this icy treat. Or maybe a squirrel scuttled up the tree and grasped the apple with its tiny paws, holding it steady as she munched on her dinner.
First day of spring —
I keep thinking about
the end of autumn.
Just like the previous haiku, this poem subverts our expectations. We begin by contemplating the first day of spring; the snow has melted or is melting, giving rise to budding flowers. The trees are slowly waking up from their winter nap, as are the animals who hid between their roots. And yet, instead of staying present in this moment, Basho is already anticipating the end of autumn, the beginning of winter, the returning chill, snow, and ice.
Comedy is at its keenest when it subverts one’s expectations. Maybe 600 years ago in Japan these poems were the dullest around. Yet, compared to the sincerity of Thoreau, Basho’s words beg you to notice nature laughing at you, and invite you to laugh at nature in turn. Admittedly, this is not what I would consider to be one of Basho’s funniest poems. But I think it exemplifies his ability to pull his readers’ lips up into a smile.
The apples smell sweet in the bitter way that tricks my nose into thinking it’s about to smell something appetizing. Instead my nose is greeted by the sharp scent of vinegar and fermentation. I can feel my nose pucker. It’s so jarring when contrasted to the calming rain and the promise of ice.
Unlike the previous two poems, summer does not end on a humorous line — it begins with one. There is a wonderful roundness to the phrase “Coolness of the melons” created by the “oo” sound. The words are slowly drawn out of your mouth like water sliding down a glass of lemonade in the summer heat. Its such an absurdly accurate phrase, I can’t help but chuckle.
This poem is still, beginning with its shape and ending with morning dew. One is immediately thrust into a warm summer morning where the only refreshing thing around is a melon still attached to the vine, absorbing the mist floating around it. With so few words, Basho summon a lifetime of feelings and memories.
How amusing that this ugly tree with its putrid stench and shriveled apples is the most stunning thing I can see. My sight and my smell argue with one another; is this tree beautiful, or is it hideous? Am I am so deprived of color in this grey winter world that I am simply thrilled to find it wherever I can? Is the tree beautiful despite the rotten fruit glued to its branches? Or is it beautiful because of the moss and lichen daintily draped across its bark?
The first line again highlights the roundness of the mouth, evoking images full moon. This poem is more like contemporary nature writing then the previous poems; there is no comedy. Just a depiction of an alluring autumn evening. Where this poem differs is its length — modern nature writing is verbose, spending paragraphs praising nature. Basho is brief, capturing an instant of beauty in a world of chaos and change. Nature is never still enough to let an artist capture the perfect picture. It is dynamic. And this moment of stillness, this succinct poem, captures the feeling of being part of that motion more perfect than any picture could.
Here though I must capitulate; these poems are all translations, and as wonderful as they are, meaning is always lost in translation. This is especially true with a language as complex and as nuanced as Japanese. I have no way of knowing how much of the meaning, wordplay, or sound was lost, nor do I know what was added. I can’t compare these poems to their originals. I can however compare them to other poems in English.
Basho (or his translator) is an undeniably beautiful writer. Haiku is ephemeral and fleeting, entirely different from other western nature writing. It is a snapshot of an instant, a feeling, a season. Basho’s poems embody movement despite the inherent stillness of the scenes. There is levity, an airy quality to his writing that makes it seem effortless. Most of all, there is humor.
David Gessner sardonically says, “You don’t want to do anything as drastic or volatile as mixing humor with nature; that wouldn’t be proper, wouldn’t be safe.” This is one of the ten commandments of nature writing: nature isn’t funny, nature isn’t messy, nature isn’t erotic. Nature is nothing short of pristine. At least, that’s what most nature writers would have you think.
Basho essentially laughs in the face of this mentality. His poems are messy and crass and so painfully human. In a medium characterized by its majestic caricatures of natural phenomenon, Basho writes about lice, radishes, and the horse peeing beside his pillow. Often, he will spend the first two lines masquerading as a traditional nature writer — earnest, as Gessner calls them. He lulls his readers with the familiar descriptions of winter flowers and spring rain, startling them with an infectious laughter that crawls out of their throat. Because nature is messy. Nature is erotic. Nature is funny. Nature is incredibly human.
This tree is beautiful because it is ugly, beautiful because of how it contradicts itself, beautiful because it defies our expectations about a crisp, clean winter. This tree is so unafraid to be natural. This tree is unafraid to be human.
