Apparently "death poems" are a particular genre of Japanese poetry, although Basho did say once that EVERY poem he wrote was a "death poem" (which makes you think if you are that way inclined)
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| Basho |
Basho was the haiku poet and itinerant traveller, famous for his travel journal "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". It was in his own introduction to this that I first read that "the journey itself is home". Basho goes on to say that from the very earliest time there have "always been those who perished along the road", which brings me back to death poems.
Just to continue with a little bit of name dropping and to demonstrate just how cultured a Pure Land Buddhist can be, here are the thoughts of an ancient Roman, Seneca:-
"There exists no more difficult art than living...........throughout the whole of life, one must continue to learn to live, what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die"
Whatever we think of that, it remains to be said that the "Death Poem" is an art form among the Japanese. Here are a couple of examples.......
Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going —
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
And......
Bury me when I die
beneath a wine barrel
in a tavern.
With luck
the cask will leak
The latter appears to demonstrate that our Japanese friends have a sense of humour.
Perhaps enough on this subject. But just to assure you that I am not making this all up, here is the cover of a book on the subject:-
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