In 'HAIKU Volume 1 EASTERN CULTURE by R.H. BLYTH', Basho's haiku is taken up as follows:
冬籠もり又寄添はんこの柱
Fuyu gomori mata yorisowan kono hashira
Winter seclusion:
Once again I will lean against
This post.
Here, and here only, is the little life set in the circle of the greater, the ordinary in the extreordinary, the commonplace in the miraculous, the material in the spiritual, the human in the divine. To sit on the floor and lean one's back against a post may not seem the acme of comfort, but this is the pleasure Basho is promising himself. During the winter, while the snow is silently falling, he will lean against the post as he did last year, reading and writing poetry, thinking
Thoughts that wander through eternity,
through our eternity, through the greater life. This post, rubbed amooth with countless vigils, black where his head rested against it, is all he asks for.
Inspired by Bsho's haiku above, I wrote haiku below.
Old bookworm
ponders between lines...
snow country
雪国や行間に住む本の虫
Yukiguni ya gyoukan ni sumu hon no mushi
― Hidenori Hiruta
