27 June 2023 (Genji)

Genji on audiobook

as she drives to her lover . . .

unchanging moon

The Tale of Genji is an 11th century Japanese saga written by Murasaki Shikibu, and is considered by many to be the world’s first real novel. Full disclosure: I am indeed listening to it on Audible right now (and have also read it several times), but the lover I was driving to with Genji-like ardor was a serving of amazing strawberry shortcake at Beth’s Farm Market, which might be better than sex!

January 29: Afternoon with a book

Re-reading The Tale of Genji

I find myself longing

for... something...

Posted with Blogsy

November 7: Misty Moon

Thanks to the time change, when I left work this afternoon, dusk was already falling. The waxing moon was rising over Mount Battie, slightly blurred by a frosty mist. Misty moon. I was reminded of a key scene in my favorite book, the 11th century Japanese classic The Tale of Genji (which I've referred to in several other posts-it's a poetic touchstone for me). Made restless by the beauty of the misty moon, the book's hero, Genji, sneaks around the women's wing of the royal palace looking for romance. He chances upon a mystery woman whom he overhears admiring the moon and ends up spending the night with her. That's how things happened in that time and culture.

The mystery woman is thereafter referred to as Oborozukiyo, Night of the Misty Moon. Turns out she's a princess, the crown prince's wife-to-be, and the sister of Genji's greatest political enemy. This combination of poetry and forbidden love of course makes her all the more irresistible to Genji, whose continued pursuit of her sets in motion the series of political events that eventually lead to his exile. It's one of the many romantic vignettes exquisitely captured in the book, and I've always been especially drawn to it--perhaps because I too can remember being similarly moved by the poetic beauty of the misty moon, way back in my reckless youth.

Misty moon rising:
romantic memories blur
under Genji's moon.

July 25: Carrots

In my favorite book ever, "The Tale of Genji," which was written about 1,000 years ago in Heian-era Japan, the high-born characters celebrate the Iris Festival in the fifth month. A part of this festival involved an iris root contest, to see who could find the most interestingly-shaped root. They would even send love poems to each other attached to unusual iris roots. I thought of this today as I was pulling carrots at our CSA farm in Lincolnville. Our farmer had grown four different types of carrot, and one of them seemed to specialize in twisted, multi-pronged roots. After I got them all home and washed, I thought they made a poetic picture:

The weird ones at the bottom look like legs. One looks like a peace sign or a wishbone. And there's one on the upper right that has a little knob at the top, like the head of an armless doll...

If I were to write a poem on carefully chosen paper such as in "The Tale of Genji" and send it to my husband attached to one of these carrots, it would read:

This carrot's odd roots,

twinned, nourished well in rich soil,

make me think of us.

March 7: Sea Salt

A friend gave us today a small bottle of sea salt from the waters off Spruce Head. Throughout the winter he boils off seawater on his wood stove and collects the salt residue. Now we can season our food with genuine local salt. In this new era of eating local foods, I hadn't thought before about how even salt can be found so close to home. Living on the coast, we are surrounded by sea salt, but I never think about harvesting my own as I would wild berries or mussels.

This home-grown process of "making" salt reminded me of a poignant section of The Tale of Genji in which Prince Genji goes into exile for a while in a remote coastal village on Suma Bay, far from his many lovers and the excitement of the capital. While there, he exchanges letters and poems with a former lover, including this one, which in Japanese apparently contains double meanings hinting at a longed for but forbidden meeting.

At Suma Bay
on the beach is the sea grass
which one knows so well.
What do the women boiling salt
from seawater think of it?

(Translated by Jane Reichhold with Hatsue Kawamura)

Being a sophisticated city guy, Genji is charmed by the quaint scene of the peasant women boiling seawater for salt on the beaches. His lover's reply poem references, of course, briny tears on her sleeves over their separation. Sleeves dampened by tears / dew / water seemed to be a common image of pathos in Genji's time.

I, on the other hand, not having such emotions to draw upon now, boil down my thoughts into a poem that is more "salt of the earth:"

Bottle of sea salt--
this harbor's waters offer
something essential.

February 3: More Snow

"A dusting of snow." That was today's forecast. Yet a couple of inches of light fluffy snow had accumulated on my car before I'd even left for work. Snow fell all day and it's still falling. Huge flakes drifted in mesmerizing three-dimensional flurries. I hardly needed a shovel to clear the driveway tonight--I might have just swept the driveway clear with a big broom. Though deep, such snow feels harmless, even comforting, softening the landscape. Once again the street grit, frozen sludge, and fallen branches are hidden from sight. All is fresh and pure again.

Wanting to honor the snow, it seemed appropriate to consult my favorite book The Tale of Genji, the complex emotional narrative of which is advanced by tanka--five-line, 31-syllable poems (the first three lines of which eventually evolved into haiku). The characters regularly communicate via such poems, which convey many layers of meaning through evocative word play. In addition to the words themselves, poems were also judged by the type and color of the paper they were written on, the handwriting of the poet, the way the paper was folded, and what type of flower or branch the poem was attached to. This was a culture that valued the poetic aesthetic to an extreme.

For example, the hero Prince Genji must reply to an invitation by the emperor to go hunting in the snowy mountains. He doesn't want to go because he's mooning over a pretty young woman, so he sends his regrets with a flattering poem:

The falling of snow
in fine weather is splendid,
as magnificent
as jewels on the palanquin
of the finest emperor.

translated by Jane Reichhold with Hatsue Kawamura


In response the emperor writes his own poem about the day's hunting and sends it to Genji with a brace of pheasants. And his poem triggered my own:

I dreamed three pheasants
sat on the snowy feeder--
gems set in crystal.

December 1: Full Moon

It goes without saying that it feels like the middle of the night when I leave my office these days. Tonight as I drove home in the dark, my vision further obscured by the fact that I was peering through a sheen of frost slowly melting on the inside of my windshield, the full moon appeared from behind the mountain. I can see it from my living-room window now, above the hulking shape of the mountain and my neighbors' colorful Christmas lights, that bright face looking in at me and the cat in my lap.

The ancient Japanese aristocracy, with their highly developed aesthetic sensibilities, often held moon-viewing parties that involved poetry. According to Ivan Morris's book The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan (a companion guide to The Tale of Genji, a Japanese novel written over 1,000 years ago, my favorite book of all time, and the reason why I fell in love with haiku in the first place), the full moon of the Eighth Month was considered the most beautiful. The Great Moon-Viewing was celebrated thus: "To the sound of lute and zither music, men and women spend the night in boats on the artificial lakes of the Palace and of private residences, viewing the full moon and composing poems in its honor." It also "became customary to make offerings of dumplings and potatoes to the moon." Moon-viewing was clearly a warm weather activity. I won't be heading out in a boat on this cold evening to admire the moon, though I'm sure it's reflecting beautifully right now on Penobscot Bay. But perhaps we can cook up those fingerling potatoes I bought last week and celebrate in that way. And with a poem, of course.

The moon has inspired much Japanese poetry over the centuries and is a common subject of haiku. Chiyo-ni, the 18th century woman haiku master, wrote this after she became a Buddhist nun:

full moon--
keeping it in my eyes
on a distant walk

For her, observing the full moon was a form of meditation, a focus that brought her awareness. I have often found myself caught by the full moon, staring rapt like a deer in headlights. And as a child, as many children do, would fixate on the moon through the back seat window as it seemed to follow the car's every turn.

Chiyo-ni also wrote the following poem about the transformative powers of moonlight, perhaps as a commentary on women who spent too much time figuring out what to wear to a moon-viewing party. After all, the moon is the real object of attention, not them. But things apparently never change.

in the moonlight
whatever you wear becomes beautiful
moonviewing

(Translated by Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi)

And thus I draw my inspiration for tonight's poem--my muses both Chiyo-ni, a woman who watched this same moon 300 years ago, and the full moon itself.

Full-faced moon, not shy,
wearing the mountain as robe,
beaming on us all.