Reading More and Writing Better: Anything New? Haiku by Chen-ou Liu

after Ecclesiastes 1:9

glasswing butterfly

in morning sunshine

anything new?

Chen-ou Liu

FYI: The joshi (prefatory note) establishes a hermeneutic frame. The reader is primed to read the haiku against Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New International Version below)

What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun

The transparent wings of the glasswing butterfly in L1 naturally evoke themes of invisibility, fragility, and clarity. Yet the specificity of the image becomes important in L2.

In L2,  “in morning sunshine,” the glasswing is placed in direct light. Unlike many insects, whose wings can flash, glint, or reflect sunlight, the glasswing's transparent wings have a remarkably low reflectivity. Their microscopic structure acts as an antireflective surface, allowing light to pass through rather than producing the conspicuous shimmer one might expect from an insect in sunlight. The butterfly therefore remains visually elusive even when illuminated.

By placing this particular biological phenomenon in “morning sunshine,” Ls 1&2 create a literal scenario of an object being under the sun, activating the central phrase of Ecclesiastes 1:9 without quoting it.

L3 then supplies the turn:

anything new?

The question becomes an interrogation of what Ls 1&2 have presented. The glasswing initially appears to offer something extraordinary—an almost paradoxical creature whose wings are present yet nearly invisible, illuminated yet not shining. But the joshi has already placed that apparent novelty under the judgment of Ecclesiastes: Is this really anything new?

The haiku does not explain Ecclesiastes 1:9; it re-enacts its paradox in miniature. Ecclesiastes offers a pronouncement; the haiku offers a question. The former declares that there is nothing new under the sun, while the latter allows the reader to experience the tension between apparent novelty and inevitable recurrence. The philosophical conclusion is therefore left unstated.

There is also an especially apt irony in the choice of a butterfly. Culturally, the butterfly is an emblem of transformation—of becoming something other than what one was. Yet biologically, metamorphosis is not novelty but recurrence: an ancient life cycle repeated countless times.

Thus the haiku's emblem of transformation is itself an instance of repetition. Even the extraordinary glasswing participates in a pattern that is older than the individual creature.

The glasswing is therefore not merely a beautiful or unusual natural object. It is structurally suited to the meditation of Ecclesiastes: something that appears radically new, placed literally under the sun, and finally subjected to the question of whether anything is new at all.