Why did you vanish
into the empty sky?
Even the fragile snow,
when it falls,
falls in this world.
--Izumi Shikibu (和泉式部) b 976?, woman poet of the Heian period, Japan. Her daughter, also a gifted poet, died in childbirth. Translation by Jane Hirshfield and Mariki Aratani in The Ink Dark Moon..
などて君むなしき空に消えにけん淡雪だにもふればふる世に
Ikkyu [一休宗純], the Zen master, was very clever even as a boy. His teacher had a precious teacup, a rare antique. Ikkyu happened to break this cup and was greatly perplexed. Hearing the footsteps of his teacher, he held the pieces of the cup behind him. When the master appeared, Ikkyu asked: "Why do people have to die?"
"This is natural," explained the older man. "Everything has to die and has just so long to live."
Ikkyu, producing the shattered cup, added: "It was time for your cup to die."
--From Zen Flesh, Zen Bones , compiled by Paul Reps (1895-1990)
Kobayashi Issa... lost his wife when he was young. Although he remarried in his latter life, his children died one after another at about the age of one year. Remembering such sad experiences, he composed this poem:
A bitter persimmon’s
bitterness itself
turns naturally into its sweetness.
Perhaps Issa’s state of mind in his poem could be re-phrased like this.
Tears of sadness
themselves naturally turn
into compassion.
We cannot change the reality of impermanence expressed in the separation from the loved one. But facing the sadness without turning away from the past, just as the bitterness of a persimmon turns into sweetness by itself, grief eventually turns into kindness in the heart, and from there new tolerance is born....True kindness can be learned from grief.
--From Shinran’s Approaches towards Bereavement and Grief , by Naoki Nabeshima. Translated by Eisho Nasu
An autumn chill goes through me
stepping on my dead wife's comb
on the bedroom floor
--Taniguchi Buson (1715–1783)
Mi ni shimu ya!
Naki-tsuma no kushi wo
neya ni fumu.
身にしむや
亡妻の櫛を
閨に踏む
