Edith Shiffert's Solo Hyakuin

Edith Shiffert’s 100 Verse Solo Renga

As readers of this blog know, Renga is my favorite form of poetry.  For quite a few years now I have written solo Renga, which is unusual.  By far the majority of Renga written both in Japan and elsewhere consists of communal Renga; meaning Renga written by a group of poets.  Some sources online will define Renga as a form always written by a group.

Nevertheless, I have been inspired to compose solo Renga by the poet Sogi.  Two of Sogi’s solo Renga have been translated into English, so there is precedent for Renga as a solo form.  Sogi’s 100 Verse (Hyakuin) solo called ‘Sogi Alone’ is my favorite Renga and is the source for and inspiration of my approach to solo Renga.

Still, at times I have felt kind of out on a limb.  The fact that I write solo Renga is unusual by itself.  But in addition, I write syllabic Renga.  In contrast, all the Renga I have seen that are done in the west use a free verse approach to lineation. 

It came, therefore, as a delightful surprise to discover that Edith Shiffert had composed a solo 100 Verse (Hyakuin) Renga using a syllabic approach years before I began my own work on Renga.  I found this Renga in Shiffert’s ‘New and Selected Poems’, which was published in 1979.  The Renga is titled ‘For a Return to Kona’ (Kona is an Island in the Hawaiian chain).  It was selected from her previously published ‘For a Return to Kona’; but I am not sure of the date of that particular volume.  I think this Renga is a fine work.  And it is such a pleasure for me to find another poet whose approach to Renga in English turned in the same direction that I have found congenial and whose work precedes my own.  I find this validating of my own impulses regarding Renga in English.

I believe that this is the first solo Hyakuin Renga in English.  I have decided to present it here primarily for its intrinsic value but also for its historical significance.

FOR A RETURN TO KONA

One Hundred Stanzas

By Edith Shiffert

I

The tropic greenness

veiling the long mountain slope

fades only at night.

From an airplane coming in

the whole island has one shape.

Brown cattle feed on

thorny kiave bushes

by the hot shoreline.

How many feet must wander

to mark a path on lava?

A circle of clouds

around the seasonless moon

shines like a rainbow.

Up in the high pastureland

fog hides the grazing horses.

In a cool morning

the fencing of the corral

is wet to lean on.

Ferns grow so high over me

they hide the red flowered trees.

II

Is Kailua town

still alone on the seashore

with just two thin roads?

It is strange to remember

a place that one knows has changed.

I woke up crying

but had forgotten the dream

that had made me cry.

In places without seasons

roses never stop blooming.

That coffee farmer’s

people wrote poems like this

five hundred years back.

After rain the warm air smells

of husks from the coffee beans.

All the ground was rock

hardened from the flowing lava,

walking sounds hollow.

At the edge of the front porch

people feasted on mangos.

Fresh rainwater cleans

the stickiness of fruit juice

from my hands and lips.

Under netting he and I

slept like children in moonlight.

I still remember

the smell of mosquito punk

after all those years.

How often I was homesick

for a place that was not home.

To come back and look

where I once climbed up mountains

I crossed an ocean.

How can one know the right place

to stay peacefully and rest?

III

A graying head bends

and fists beat upon the floor

beside the bent knees.

Oh how silently I sit

returned where I used to be.

Steep slopes all around

with a few overgrown paths,

then a whole ocean.

Did you watch this sun go down

from your land some hours ago?

A fisherman walks away

from a landhead of lava

before the moonrise.

As it becomes night I wait

to learn what quietness is.

When a friend’s love sailed

she made him a lei of silk,

he brushed her long hair.

The school bus going uphill

carries thin children who sing.

Who will remember

lima beans climbing up

avocado trees?

The years I lived here

our windows where never closed.

One might ask himself

is the body the garland

blooming from the earth?

I wonder what I should want

now that I am back again.

Plumeria blooms

above forgotten people

in cemeteries.

Coy, I show you the sincere;

Surface is a branch and reeds.

IV

Watching far-of ships

I often wondered if I

would leave the island.

Every wind-storm from the sea

knocks down more sweet coconuts.

When the island shakes

the houses tremble and squeak

and a few dishes fall.

While she kneels to make my tea

I become aware of tears.

The wooden farmhouse

is circled by rusty cans

of purple orchids.

She who danced for the temple

has become a calm matron.

A heavy man sleeps

stretched out on the window sill

of the town’s poolhall.

How could all those years of days

seem like some story I read?

If today I mailed

ripe guava and sweet mangos

they would arrive spoiled.

You never heard this clatter

of rain on a metal roof.

Before I left here

I used to climb trees to look

above the jungle.

Shadows move in the moonlight,

wild pigs crunching fallen fruit.

Wakened by the drum

of the temple I felt cold

under just a sheet.

In closed houses with heat on

one can shiver all night long.

V

Moonflowers still bloom

on the roofless mansion walls

burned two weeks ago.

When the sirens woke me up

I thought it was the mainland.

What place is behind

the fogginess of morning

where mynah birds call?

People and cars move along

the round-the-island roadway.

How many red leis

came from the porchside rosebush

some stranger planted?

The path slants down to the lane

grassy between coffee fields.

I climbed the long slope,

twice I stayed on top a week

by the crater fumes.

The moon shone on the bright clouds

over the land below me.

While only the sky

and one’s self are visible,

one’s self is nothing.

That other volcano peak

has been dormant some years.

An island is small

in so much water and sky,

and impermanent.

When wind parts the mist I look

into steam and the crater.

All night he and I

Shivered in a summit cave

not far from shelter.

I want to climb there alone

and see the ghost dog wander.

VI

In a slow hammock

I feel the turn of the wind

push me back and forth.

Who lives in my plain board house

with slats for the lower walls?

Walking back quite late,

the fall weeds dampen my skirt

a rat startles me.

A neighbor’s banana trees

were broken off by the wind.

Bright colored birds perch

to peck at over-ripe fruit

the children gave them.

Is grass called sincere and kind

because it never makes mistakes?

The ancient poets

wrote when they felt bewildered

and I read their words.

While I rest here the new moon

grows full, disappears, returns.

If you were to come

and sit on the porch with me

you would understand.

Some are washed into the sea

and disappear forever.

From a coral tree

the sea carved and laid on sand

this pure white stone egg.

What waits at the hard center?

“Even the last grain of sand.”

Past the rain forest,

on the bare sharp lava fields,

our shoes were worn out.

That fisherman’s hands were scarred

from hooks and bites of eels.

VII

When the moon comes up,

first the roosters, then the dogs.

The ocean lies still.

The old lady’s kimono

has cherry blossoms at the hem.

A kerosene lamp

shows fresh tangerines and rice

by the household shrine.

I sleep on the floor, happy

to pretend this is the world.

If a wild bird comes

and allows me to feed it

I will not forget.

Say why I should not enjoy

these pleasures of my ego?

A stone’s shadow leans

over the fish and seaweeds

in the clear tide pools.

And all those years yet to come

will also be like a dream?

I like best to drink

water, heated or still cool

from springs and rainfall.

Even in drought the village

is shaded with gaudy vines.

In the cool Northwest

spring lasts from February

to mid-June roses.

Here the moonlight is scented

with jasmine all of the year.

Violets will come

to the northern woods, briefly

in about two months.

You too can look at flowers

and be almost satisfied.

VIII

If I have caused grief

remember we are phantoms

and be forgiving.

One side of the huge mango

has blossoms, the other fruit.

Facing the mountains,

the ocean sound at his back,

the priest sits and talks.

The urge to do right or wrong

fades and there was no wrongness.

Barefoot old women

sucking guavas, gossiping,

spit seeds in the dust.

The ocean of blues and greens

sparkles three miles farther down.

If the volcano

flared up I would not see it

through the morning clouds.

Coffee trees bloom and people

talk of whiteness and fragrance.