one by one
fireflies escape my glass jar...
starry night
Editor's Comment:
For
the theamed "insect / bug Haiku Thread Sketchbook poets submitted an
unprecedented 273 poems; picking a single haiku as choice has been
difficult... However, after narrowing the field down to ten I have
reached a decision. My number one choice was submitted by Chen-ou Liu,
The
narrator in this ku, possibly a child, has been collecting fireflies
in a glass jar. What child has not participated in this activity on an
early, twilight summer eve? Such an activity permits a close up
inspection of these mysterious, luminescent creatures—an up close
experience of the microcosm. Later, the narrator releases the fireflies,
and one by one they escape their "glass" confinement returning to the
larger world. They become indistinguishable in the clear night sky as as
their tiny, glowing lights become intermixed with the canvas of the
night sky filled with stars. The transformation of views is
dramatic—moving from a microcosmic view to a macrocosmic view. It is
this shift of view point that captures my attention. The child like act
of capturing fireflies as specimens for display in a glass jar is
commonplace, but allowing them to escape and mingle as points of light
against the large canvas of a sky on a starry night leads one to
speculate on the larger questions about life. What is life? Is there
life in the vast and mostly unexplored, distant universe? Are the life
forms of the "firefly", a "human", and a distant "star" related? What is
the origin of life? These are large questions—all of which invade my
mind upon reading Chen-ou Liu's interesting haiku?
Some
readers may object to the selection of this haiku as a Choice example.
Both "firefly" and "starry night" are commonly listed kigos—haijin
purists will hastily point out that only one kigo should be used. Yet,
the vastness of the questions that arise in my mind from reading Chen-ou
Liu's haiku lead me to persist in this choice.
My Response:
John’s
comments are informative and insightful, and I’m particularly impressed
by this well thought-out comment:”The transformation of views is
dramatic—moving from a microcosmic view to a macrocosmic view. It is
this shift of view point that captures my attention.”
As
for his concluding comment, my response to so-called haijin purists’
complaint is simple: there is no abiding kigo tradition adopted and
followed by the English language haiku community, and in the Japanese
haiku, two kigo are allowed to use (one of them is treated as a dominant
one). For more information about the use of two kigo, see my "To the Lighthouse" post, "
Haiku with Two Kigo (or Two Season-Themed Words/Phrases)."
