Poetic Musings: Mother and Ocean Haiku by Kobayashi Issa

mother I never knew,

each time I see the ocean,

each time --

The Essential Haiku, 1995

Kobayashi Issa 

Commentary: L1 establishes both the emotional atmosphere and the biographical context: Issa’s mother died when he was only two or three years old. The phrase translated as “each time” in Ls 2&3 comes from the Japanese "miru tabi ni," which Issa repeats in the original text (naki haha ya / umi miru tabi ni / miru tabi ni). This repetition conveys an unending, recurring sense of longing. The ocean in L2 also functions powerfully as a metaphor for the mother he never knew—vast, deep, and ultimately unreachable.

My haiku below may be read as a counter poem to Issa’s:

wind-torn clouds

the surging winter ocean

between mom and me

Wales Haiku Journal, Winter 2024/25

Where Issa’s ocean evokes yearning for an absent mother, mine suggests emotional distance and estrangement. The “surging winter ocean” becomes not a symbolic connection, but a barrier separating mother and child, while the “wind-torn clouds” reinforce the haiku’s atmosphere of turbulence and fracture.