A fun exercise with a poem: For Basho

Today I did something kind of fun. I have a book of Matsuo Basho’s haiku on my desk that I often read when I’m experiencing writer’s block. It’s a beautiful book even though now it’s a bit beat up and coffee-stained. But the pages are full of haiku by the master of haiku. Sometimes when I read them, I feel like I can picture him on his travels, taking inspiration from the simplest of things, writing his verses even in discomfort, possibly hungry, cold, stuck in bad weather, probably tired.

And then I wonder how on earth I can claim any adversity at all.

At any rate, today I was reading some Matsuo Basho and I found this one:

snow on snow

this night in December

a full moon

—Matsuo Basho

I’m currently editing my book Winter Solstice for republishing so this little haiku caught my attention, especially when I read the backstory of it. Basho wrote it for two fellow poets who were arguing, hoping by pointing out the beauty of the moon’s glow on the snow, he could defuse the fight.

I don’t know if it worked for them, but it gave me something to think about. I wondered what it would be like to write a sonnet with the same idea. So I did.

For Basho
By Michelle Garren-Flye

Why persist in impatience and strife?
When yonder field full of starflowers
reflects the moon’s light into our life,
how can this world of war be ours?

Sit here beside me, give me your cares.
Worries, bad habits, and visions begone!
Along with all the stuff of your nightmares—
the ones that sometimes linger on.

This world is full of beauty, you know:
meadows turned into a galaxy of stars
by nothing more than the moon’s glow
concealing all of our cuts and scars

Take heart! Come with me and dance
in soft grass among stars and planets.

It’s hard to remember sometimes that our world has been through a lot and survived. Sometimes the news makes it seem we are on the brink of all the disasters. Politicians make money off our fears, the media churns out new ones every day. But today I saw a Monarch on a bunch of pink lemonade lantana, and it made me happy.

Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye