Mountain Tasting: Haiku And Journals Of Santoka Taneda

Death and Winter
Santoka Taneda, author of Mountain Tasting: Haiku and Journals of Santoka Taneda once wrote, “Haiku is not a shriek, a howl, a sigh, or a yawn; rather, it is the deep breath of life”. (Haiku). Every haiku has the ability to capture a moment in time and all the emotions that follow that experience. Even as a small poem, haikus are able to emit deep emotions and imagery with only a few words. In Matsuo Basho’s haikus, he used powerful words and meanings to provoke the reactions to his work. Four of Basho’s haikus capture the distress, stillness, and sadness that is often held in the season of Winter and in times of death by using vital word choices to create emotional responses from his readers. Haikus hold great meaning, affecting
In the haiku “I fall sick traveling”, the audience is able to feel the means in which the author is referring to the process of dying with the mind still going forward. Within the last line, “my dream still wanders”, readers can infer that the death of this person does not mean the end of his or her memory (3). The legacy and memory of this person still lives on with those that will remember him or her. “I fall sick traveling,/ but through withered fields” is how Basho painted easy visualizing scenery of the narrator falling ill on his or her final travels in a unpleasant place(1-2). The mind of the narrator continues to go on, even after the body had fallen too weak to continue. While looking at the emotional connection to the words in the haiku, a sense of reluctance and sadness can be felt as the narrator is unable to continue in his or her life, yet wishes to see more on his or her travels. In each of these haikus, readers are able to feel from the distinct language that the haiku is written in that the emotions that one would feel while nearing the end of their life is seen through the words of the haiku with those emotions being very common ones for those that are about to pass
Using the dead of night in winter’s air, “Above the garden” shows how even insects are affected by the harsh conditions of winter. Utilizing the feelings of alarm and panic from being abruptly awaken from deep sleep, the haiku “A night so icy” is able to capture a night so quiet and still that even a water jar cracking can sound terribly loud to all. Much like how winter is often used as a sign of death and loneliness, “In the cicada cry” uses the long cry of an cicada to show that even life outlasts the words that are spoken. In Basho’s death poem, each reader can relate to the dread of death and having the hope that the memory of someone and their mind continues on even when they are perishing. All of these haikus use the weather and the span of life to show its readers that life is precious and can be short even to a small cicada. These four haikus demonstrate the value in the lives that every creature lives no matter their size. Death and winter bring not only the narrators and creatures of these haikus together but also bring those in every day lives together as well. Haikus have powerful meanings and message within every one that can make each of us appreciate the world around us and the life that we have the privilege to live