WITH HAIKU AND KIGO: 5,7, AND 5, TO MELT YOUR JOY IN THE WONDER OF NATURE

“Old tin

a frog plunges.

Sound of water. “

(Matsuo Basho)

Mario Chini, a painter and designer Italian lover of words and mentally exotic latitudes, has left us his curious collection of poetry – The Moments – which leaves wonder inside our eyes and emotions, that he has condensed in a concise and essential writing – usually of eleven syllables – inspired by the compositions “haikai” oriental, Chinese and Japanese.

One of his works, “Notes of Samisen”, is a collection of Japanese poetry, that he translated and published in Italian nearly a hundred years ago. We like to study this man at his desk, while he imagined the unlikely poetic setting of lands he had ever seen. We want to watch him paint with brushes made ​​of words, using its essential colors, that also now give us the wonder of a Japanese landscape.

On the beach of Miho, among the pines, while fades the dawn of the  Moon , dark and boats, one after another leave the asylum harbor gray for the white roads of the sea, favored by the wind that pushes, a fisherman, not yet mounted inside his ship, he lingers on the ground to contemplate the wonder of the beautiful morning, affecting his soul crude ……………

The moods of “haiku”, they are always in the nature that surrounds the poet, and they are basically four: the feeling of the mystery, of things, of the unexpected and of the loneliness. Only their perfect fusion is able to explain things, time, attention and the detachment necessary to paint with words, what the soul breathes.

………………… The air is full of scents and petals wandering: a vague heavenly music under the sky. A miracle is announced. Something new, never before seen, sways, hesitates hanging from a branch. It ‘a fabric of great beauty? It ‘a veil with embroidery ever seen? They are a fabulous bird feathers “It ‘a robe, and its color and scent that emanates show that it is not one of the usual dress ………………..

In writing “haiku”, images of nature and concepts, he dance in dry form and complex in the imagination of the writer, even using punctuation to separate or overthrow the meaning of that silent dance where every single “haiku” lives in the closest union with his “kigo” – the reference to seasonal – sometimes in the form of an animal or place, plant and event. The “kigo” is the heart of the dance of words.

……………….. The fisherman, who is poor and ignorant, take it away from the tree, examine and palpated; and understands only this: that dress is a treasure: It is now ready to take it, therefore, in his hut; but at that moment a fairy succinct, the same that perhaps the music of heaven had announced, and with that its presence made ​​the most beautiful beach of Miho, appears before him and asks him its dress …………………..

The three verses of “haiku” – usually 5, 7, and 5 syllables – have their origin in classical Japanese poetry, but their simplicity and directness perceived, are appreciated across all social strata of the population, as early as the seventeenth century, with the writer Matsuo Basho, a man who could write his travel diaries in prose, using “haiku” and “kigo”, to donate to any reader the images of nature and the emotions of its heart.

……………………..”It is the dress of peacock feathers that bring the heavenly creatures like me,” he says; “And cannot remain in mortal hands.” And the fisherman replied: “It will be as you say; but I prefer to keep it and make the treasure of my family. “”And if I show you that belongs to me,  you’ll make me?” And the fisherman replied: “I will bring it home because I found it.”…………………

In the great void that only silence can give us, the way of writing essential, that has its roots in nature, opens the doors of our imagination, transforming our little present in a large horizon full of emotions, that who dance in the numbers 5 , 7, and 5, that who can turn anyone into a sensitive painter of his state of mind.

“Red Cherries

scrutinize your joy,

melted within me.”