Thursday, April 15, 2004

Green

I take photographs every now and then. Here's one of my favourites. 11:39:24 PM

Modern Man

From A First Zen Reader, compiled and translated by Trevor Legget. Recently I heard someone discussing the poetry game played by Japanese people at the New Year, which depends on knowing the poems of the famous Hyakunin Isshu anthology. In these poems, the ancients adored the moon and the flowers and sought to trace the mysteries of nature in blossoms, birds, wind, snow and moon. Of course not a few of the verses also sing of human feelings and of love, but always there is a delicacy and refinement in them. The modern man, wholly sunk in materialism, an expert in giving nothing away, is hardly one to appreciate such poems. Still, he doesn't want to give up the poetry game, so let us perforce add one more line to make the poems more appropriate to him. And that line (the critic said) can be: "But I want some money too!" Take the famous poem of Yamabe, the fourth in the anthology: I started off along the shore, The sea shore a Tago, And saw the white and glistening peak Of Fuji all aglow Through falling flakes of snow. We put at the end: But I want some money too! Let us try another one: I hear the stag's pathetic call Far up the mountain side, While tramping o'er the maple leaves Wind-scattered far and wide, This sad, sad autumntide. But I want some money too! Never mind the stag's call and treading on the maple leaves in the deep mountains and feeling sad - if I had some money I could go to a pleasure resort and have an amusing and happy time. But I want some money too! Put that on the end of each of he poems, and it will just suit the humour of the modern man. The first time I read that, about fifteen years ago, I laughed myself stupid. Well, you have laugh, don't you. It's that or cry. This entry was prepared in LogBook. 1:58:21 PM