Editor's Choice Haiku

WHR January 2016

EDITOR’S CHOICE

half-moon in a foreign sky

the other half

I keep at home

Lydia Lecheva

The moon can be very personal. The famous waka by Abe no Nakamaro (698-770) is a case in point. He was an eminent scholar, administrator and poet in the Nara Period Japan, sent to China of Tang Dynasty as a young, bright envoy in 717-718, never to return to Japan. Of course he attempted to return home several times but while preparing for his last such attempt in 770 he died, as an old man. During his virtual exile he was given high-ranking government jobs in Tang China, culminating in the position of Governor General of Annam. His waka poem in question was about the moon he was looking at in China and is full of nostalgic sentiment of intense longing for his hometown in Japan.

天の原ふりさけ見れば春日なる三笠の山に出し月かも

Ama no hara furisake mireba kasuga naru mikasa no yama ni ideshi tuski kamo

When I look up into the vast sky tonight,

is it the same moon I saw rising

from behind Mt. Mikasa at Kasuga Shrine

all those years ago?

In what circumstances Lydia Lecheva wrote this haiku about the half-moon one can only guess. However, the deep emotional feeling which she must have experienced one seems readily to know and share (“…Yes, I know the feeling…”). The haiku belongs to those rare examples which have instant universality on anyone’s first reading.

Sky should belong to all countries. So should the moon. Lecheva had to personalise both. This situation can be of various people and at various places: Syrian refugees in foreign countries, someone in self-exile, a soldier in a foreign campaign, a child sent to a foreign school etc.

To talk about the moon which is lit by the sun and visible is one thing. To keep, or do anything about, the missing half of the moon is quite another and a refreshingly new concept. Normally we tend to concentrate our attention on things visible of which there are so many to see and about which we have so much to learn. The invisible world is just as important as the visible world (Think about Descartes’ extinguished candle light!). A lot of decisions, fate or fortune may be made behind, beyond or beneath the visibility. In this haiku many things are as invisible as the other half of the moon. What is foreign for Lecheva? What is home for her? Where on earth is she anyway?

Usually, I give people an advice of making their haiku as specific, concrete, direct and tangible as can be. Put conversely, I recommend them not to indulge in conceptual, abstract or philosophical rendering of their haiku. In the case of the Editor’s Choice in this issue, words are all specific, concrete, direct and tangible. And simple, too. So, that’s all right. However, when it comes to the meaning of them, it’s all mystery. Which foreign sky, as is mentioned above already? What do you mean by “home”? What does either of the half-moon mean? What is the author talking about anyway? Is it essential that we, the reader, should know all these things? The answer is Yes, and No. One solution is that Lecheva would write a good haibun and integrate this haiku to it. The other solution is something called “mae-gaki”, or a few words preceding the poem like a title, giving some concrete hints about what is going on. Some purists are bound to say that this haiku should be strictly left alone because it is perfect as it is and anything added to it would be redundant.

As for the layout in which the haiku is presented, it could be rearranged as follows, which may make it look neater, more stylised and dramatic:

half-moon

in a foreign sky; the other half

I keep at home

Either way, it is nice to encounter such a fine example of haiku as this from time to time.