Autumn Thoughts 秋思

Of the four seasons, it is autumn alone which can be felt before it arrives. After a windless, long and blisteringly hot summer, toward the end of August, the arrival of autumn can be felt as surely as the warmth of the sun.

How does it arrive?

Autumn arrives first by the sound of the wind. It is ever so slight, something heard more than felt-- the stirring in the wind of the leaves in the trees.

"Autumn is coming," it's all people talk about.    

 

 

秋来ぬと目にはさやかに見えぬども風の音にぞおどろかれぬる　　　
--藤原敏行あそん

Nothing meets the eye
to demonstrate beyond a doubt
that autumn has come--
yet suddenly we are struck
just by the sound of the wind
--- Fujiwara Toshiyuki no Ason

And, our Lady of the Seasons, Sei Shonagon, tells us

秋は、夕暮。夕日のさして、山の端（は）いと近うなりたるに、烏の寝どころへ行くとて、三つ四つ、二つ三つなど、飛び急ぐさへあはれなり。まいて雁などの列ねたるがいと小さく見ゆるは、いとをかし。日入り果てて、風の音、虫の音など、はたいふべきにあらず。
“In autumn the evenings, when the glittering sun sinks close to the edge of the hills and the crows fly back to their nests in threes and fours and twos; more charming still is a file of wild geese, like specks in the distant sky. When the sun has set, one’s heart is moved by the sound of the wind and the hum of the insects”

**

For a long time, I was puzzled. "Why," I wondered, "was the Ninth Month traditionally known as the 'Long Month'  (nagatsuki)?" Afterall, August always felt so long that September in comparison flew by. Well, the Long Month is "long" because of lengthening nights.  As the Lady said, Autumn is all about the evenings. And it ain't pretty. Everything conspires against a person during those lonely nights: early darkness, dewdrops like tears, the crickets crying and crying outside your window-- everything reminding you of your lover's absense; the death of passion and romance, fading as quickly as the colors of the grasses in the field.

Autumn is the season of Waiting, Longing, Pining, Omou.

秋萩も
色づきぬれば
きりぎりす我が寝ぬことや
夜はかなしき　
As autumn deepens
and the bush clover also change color
there cries the crickets
like me despairing the sadness
of these sleepless autumn nights
    -Anon (KKS)

君しのぶ
草にやつるる
古里は
松虫の音ぞ
悲しかりけり
Back home in the house
pitifully covered in lonely grass
I wait, listening
to the crying pine crickets
and sadly long for you to come
-Anon (KKS)

In Japan, its always love. Next door, though, while poets do once in awhile speak of romance, more it is friendship that the poets sing about. So, in China, when one thinks of "Autumn Thoughts" (秋思, Qiu Si), it is of friends faraway... drinking alone with the moon, maybe? Melancholic meditations, absolutely. Romance and love, though, don't make much of an appearance-- perhaps as Spring is a better time in China for thinking of romance?

Jane Hirshfield is one of my favorite translators of classical japanese poetry into English. An amazing feat for someone who doesn't speak Japanese! She also captured one aspect of Chinese poetry that I love so much here-- in this poem (which is not a translation but rather her own poem). It reminds me so much of Inoue's portrayal of the monk Chao's fate that I wrote about here. What is it about this aspect of being swallowed up in insignificance as something strangely comforting? And why does this seem all the more vivid in autumn...

The Heart's Counting Knows Only One
In Sung China,
two monks, friends for sixty years
watched the geese pass
Where are they going?
one tested the other, who couldn't say.

The moment's silence continues.

No one will study their friendship
in the koan books of insight.
No one will remember their names.

Almost swallowed by the vastness of the mountains
but not yet.

As the barely audible
geese are not yet swallowed;
as even we, my love, will not entirely be lost.
--Jane Hirshfield

Comments

[M.W.Nolden]

We've gazed at the full autumn moon, listened to the insects serenade us from the tall grasses & yes, we are a bit melancholy…
However, an artist in the Meiji Era put these things together & gave us this object-as-poem in the form of a small but exquisite two panel screen.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/10/eaj/ho_1975.268.137.htm#

Be sure to click on the details…

[Peony]

The Met has such an amazing collection of Japanese art, doesn’t it? You're lucky to be so close...On a similar note, I love this earlier one by Sakai Hoitsu:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakai_Hoitsu
It’s at the museum in Tokyo—but they rarely show it.

Yes, poem-objects… I got out my “tea ceremony student notebook” (茶道お稽古手帳)… and this is for the Ninth Month (modern calendar):

"This month of autumn grasses and poems about the moon is also known as the Chrysanthemum month, and in tea, this is reflected in the Chrysanthemum Festival and the double nines 重陽 tea gathering. With the lingering heat of summer finally letting up around higan, mornings and evenings are now cooling off. There are blue skies and a tangle of autumn grasses in bloom as slowly but surely we begin to see the season reflected in the leaves in the trees, the color of mountain foliage and in the flow of the rivers. Autumn. After the equinox, the sound of returning geese as well as the lovely singing of the insects can be heard from out our windows.

Utencil names of the month:
Autumn sounds, insect voices, sunset, morning dew, first geese, white dew, early maple leaves, red dragonflies, autumn butterflies, matsumushi…."

And just as you said, poetry and art are intertwined in such a unique way. I really love using lacquer at this time of year--
(Kandy Korns look pretty in your shiny stainless bowl but I bet they'd be even more dazzling in black lacquer..)

http://makie-museum.com/