Poetic Musings: Snow Falling Haiku by Kajiwara Hashin

no sky,

no land -- just

snow falling

Selected Haiku, Haiku International Association

  

Kajiwara Hashin (1864-?), translated by S. Kazuo, P. Donegan, and K. Tadashi

Commentary: This deceptively simple haiku is about the snow falling so ceaselessly (L3) that there is nothing but a "world of one color" (Basho's phrase): Looking up there is falling snow, and looking down there is fallen snow. The narrator is now in a snow-falling world where sky and land have disappeared (Ls 1&2). And enhanced by the effective use of enjambment, "just" in L2 adds emotional weight and psychological depth to the haiku.

This is an exemplar haiku about the act of "simply seeing -- seeing, simply."

Note: The following is one of Basho's most-loved winter haiku:

winter solitude

in a world of one colour

the sound of the wind