The year of a giant earthquake
ends
with warmth up from my socks
Ban'ya Natsuishi
Like the clear sound of tinkling jade (玉声), Natsuishi's haiku reverberated as music in my heart. For this was, indeed, the year of the giant earthquake. And, for me, it was very much a year of thinking--perhaps not unlike Voltaire did in Candide--about what it is to live through dark times and how we as human beings can make sense of things like mega earthquakes.
But what is it to think about things like this?
Heidegger once said he wanted to differentiate between thinking as pure ratiocination and what he described as the pre-Socratic notion of thinking (noein) as "perceiving," or of being attentive to something. This would be to suggest that through our imaginative attention to the world around us--through this kind of "thinking"-- we take to mind and heart. And then, --in the words of Robert Harrison, we are saved by the vision:
What appears to the eyes then becomes spiritualized and, as spirit, enters the onlooker's inner being, inspiring the soul to emit a sigh. From this sigh of inspiration--this culminating intake and exhalation of breath--the poem we are reading is born.
In my own life, I am not sure I have ever lived through a year when things have felt so utterly unstable--from the shaking of the earth and the tsunami, to the news overseas and at home. Yesterday, I stumbled across a blog post about a recent study of income inequality in the roman empire in which even imperial Rome fared better than today's America. And from here on the ground, it sure does feel that way. I wonder who couldn't feel the same that 2011 has been a tumulutuous year. For me, at least, the mood has been of great instability within and without-- as if 10,000 things are out of balance and the center cannot hold...
But like Natsuishi's haiku above, my year-of-the-great-earthquake also ended with a very quiet appreciation of warmth--of the warmth of family and friends; of music heard in poetry, and always of the natural beauty that surrounds me. Like the warmth of the poet's socks, these small, near and dear things---- sing.
The year of a giant earthquake
ends-- with the geese
returning to the lake
-- Peony
If anyone wanted to send in a poem for the end of the year of the great earthquake, that would be wonderful.
**
Painting is a very unsual ZHANG DAQIAN 張大千 (1899-1983) that will appear here again soon, called
GAZING AT A RED SPIDER (1939年作)
Recommended: My friend Eric Selland's article on the Poetry of Natsuishi Ban'ya & The Atlantic's Year in Photos
And from earlier this year: Voltaire and Earthquakes
For music as poetry like "chanting a poem at heaven's gate: 天門一長嘯、万里清風来 (李白) is
one of my favorites of Shin Sasakubo below.