Finding it necessary, at least temporarily, to get back to literature, I picked up Shinkichi Takahasi’s Triumph of the Sparrow translated by Lucien Stryk. It’s one of the more recent additions to my library, but it was one of the shorter works I’ve purchased lately, and it made good reading while I waited for my latest checkup at the doctor’s office.

The introduction points out that Takahasi started his career as a Dadaist in the 20’s and 30’s, but later studied under a zen master and soon was “widely recognized as he foremost living zen poet.” Ironically, since the poems are undated it’s impossible to tell which periods the poems come from. Perhaps the distinction is irrelevant, though, as the translator cites Takashi Ikemoto as saying, “To a Zen poet, a thing of beauty or anything in nature is the Absolute. Hence his freedom from rationality and his recourse to uncommon symbols.” That may well explain my attraction to both surrealists, an apparent offshoot of the Dadaists, and to Zen poets.

I found myself attracted to a considerable number of poems in this volume, but “Burning Oneself to Death” was one of the first ones I was attracted to. For me, at least, it stands as the most dramatic symbol of the anti-War movement during the Vietnam era. It is a strangely compelling image, one that one wants to turn away from but is unable to.

To my western mind, it’s difficult to comprehend lighting oneself on fire in protest of injustice, no matter how severe the injustice. Yes, I can see the wisdom in King’s non-violent protest, and, yes, I can see allowing yourself to be beaten by policemen to show the brutality of an unjust government, but it’s impossible to imagine lighting myself on fire as a means of protest. Still, it’s hard to ignore the power of religious beliefs that allow a person to make this ultimate sacrifice.

Burning Oneself to Death

That was the best moment of the monk’s life.
Firm on a pile of firewood
With nothing more to say, hear, see,
Smoke wrapped him, his folded hands blazed.

There was nothing more to do, the end
Of everything. He remembered, as a cool breeze
Streamed through him, that one is always
In the same place, and that there is no time.

Suddenly a whirling mushroom cloud rose
Before his singed eyes, and he was a mass
Of flame. Globes, one after another, rolled out,
The delighted sparrows flew round like fire balls.

The first line, “That was the best moment of the monk’s life” grabs you from the very start. Why is it the best moment? Is it the happiest moment? Is it because he finds the courage to sacrifice his life to a cause greater than himself? In this act does he make an important discovery about the meaning of life? Has he realized that “one is always in the same place, and that there is no time”? How can a “cool breeze” stream through him as he is engulfed in flames. Has he freed himself from the lies that tie the rest of us to our ground of reality?

Although it may merely be my failing memory, I can almost recall “delighted sparrows” flying around the monks, though perhaps it was merely pieces of clothing and debris caught in the updraft. Whether or not they were there, it is a particularly powerful symbol in this collection where, as the translator notes, “what the poet says to us is that man, unlike the sparrow, has created forms which confine and frustrate, and until he sees that they have no reality … he will continue to tremble before them, their prisoner. He must live freely as the sparrow who can, should he wish, crush the universe and its creator.” The sparrow, as in Western tradition where it stands for the human soul, stands for the ultimate spiritual freedom.

Though perhaps first caught by the line “Happiness – a mere bit of sentimentality,” the next poem also reveals truths that, though too obvious to ignore, are often forgotten:

One Hundred Billionth of a Second

How long will this happiness last
Why, not one hundred billionth of a second-
Appalling! If I permit myself to think,
The farther I’ll be from the truth.

To think, muse, is to substitute time,
That beggar’s dirty bag, for truth,
Which lasts one hundred billionth of a second.
Time isn’t, nor space. "Thinking over,"

Sheer impossibility. Isn’t happiness
To reside there in peace?
No, "to reside there in peace" is misleading,
Since there nothing of time exits.

There’s no continuous subjective being,
No place for correlation.
Happiness-a mere bit of sentimentality,
Which neither lasts nor fades.

Happiness, at its best, does seem fleeting and to try to examine why one is happy, to think about happiness per se, does, indeed, seem to make if vanish instantly. Thinking, by itself, has probably never made anyone happy, which may well explain why writers, in general, are such a melancholy lot. At times, one does suspect that the more you think about an event the further you’ll be from truth, and from happiness.

Looking back, happiness seems at best fleeting, though “one hundred billionth of a second,” may be a poetic exaggeration. Is happiness a “mere bit of sentimentality,” a deliberate distortion of reality? If so, no wonder some of us are so unwilling to give up “sentimentality.”

On the other hand, it often seems that it is this very rejection of the possiblility of happiness and the constant emphasis on the sorrowful nature of life that makes it most difficult for me to accept most Eastern religions. The unfortunate reality is that happiness, or at least contentment, is a primary goal in my life. I was originally drawn to concepts such as enlightenment because they brought “rapture” and a feeling of “true joy.” Oftentimes, western artists used sexual metaphors to describe the feeling of enlightenment. For instance, in “And It Stoned Me,” Van Morrison says, “ And it stoned me to my soul/ Stoned me just like Jelly Roll,” an obvious comparison of enlightenment with sex.

Eastern mystics, though, describe enlightenment very differently, and it is hard to reconcile those descriptions with the goals and expectations we have set up in the Western world, where it’s hard to accept the idea that happiness last less than “one hundred billionth of a second.”

Despite the fact that I’ve read considerable Chinese and Japanese poetry, I’ve read very little “modern” poetry. In fact, I think that The Triumph of the Sparrow is the first entire book of poems I’ve read by a modern Japanese poet.

One of the things I’ve always admired in Japanese poetry is the “concreteness” of it. I like poetry that conveys its ideas concretely rather than talking about ideas. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be a trait of Takahashi. Like many modern, western poets he seems to rely on discussion rather than on concrete images to convey his ideas.

Although I try to present my opinion of any poet’s work as clearly as possible, I’ve always pointed out what I consider some of the best poems in the work. After all, I think every poet worth reading has something important to say to us. I’m not going to limit myself to just the strong points of any poet, but I hope I do offer a clear enough view of his writings so that the reader can judge for himself and is not unduly deterred by my own biases. “Flight of the Sparrow” is one of those poems I found thought-provoking but also wished that Takahashi could have found a better way of expressing the ideas:

It seems somewhat ironic that, although the poem seems to be rejecting excessive thought and the expression of ideas through words, it does so through simple declarative sentences rather than through concrete imagery. Perhaps, though, it is the contrast between lines like “Thought makes a fool” and “How free the brainless/sparrow” that is required to convey these thoughts. While I find the idea interesting, I find the poem strangely unsatisfying.

Although “Life Infinite” seems equally dependent on words rather than concrete images, I found I liked it better because of the poems relative simplicity:

Life Infinite

Beyond words, this no-thingness within,
Which I’ve become. So to remain

Only one thing’s needed: Zen sitting.
I think, breathe with my whole body-

Marvellous. The joy’s pure,
It’s beyond lovemaking, anything.

I can see, live anywhere, everywhere.
I need nothing, not even life.

I particularly liked the lines “I think, breathe with my whole body” because the lines seem to capture the essence of mediation. The line “I need nothing, not even life” captures the sense of freedom one can gain from suspending life through meditation.

Strangely enough, though, my favorite poem in the middle section of this volume of poems is “Stitches,” which probably could be found in any work of poetry in any culture:

Stitches

My wife is always knitting, knitting:
Not that I watch her,
Not that I know what she thinks.

(Awake till dawn
I drowned in your eyes-
I must be dead:
Perhaps it’s the mind that stirs

With that bamboo needle
She knits all space, piece by piece,
Hastily hauling time in.

Brass-cold, exhausted,
She drops into bed and,
Breathing calmly, falls asleep.

Her dream must be deepening,
Her knitting coming loose.

I must admit, the poem first reminded me of Penelope who promised to marry the suitors at her door but unraveled her knitting every night in a desperate attempt to stall until Odysseus could return. Later though, it reminded me of my mother who would sit knitting for hours, creating marvelous garments from mere space and an apparently endless ball of yarn. It was almost as if the sweater would appear magically, as if she was knitting “space” itself, only requiring “time” to make it appear.

Perhaps we all try to knit our existence from the skein of time we are given, only to have it unravel at night when confronted with our dreams of what we wanted our lives to be.

Almost as interesting as the poems in Triumph of the Sparrow is the interview with Shinkichi Takahashi. I particularly liked the distinction he makes between the poet and the philosopher, “ The poet deals with absolute truth, offering witness to it directly, experientially – the philosopher relative truth, using strategies of all kinds to assure understanding.”

His statements that, “I am doing what Zen artists have always tried to do – change those who stand before my work” and “Else, why bother, why give oneself the trouble. I say through my work that it is possible for man to be freer than he finds himself, awaken to things he has hardly noticed around him.” are good reminders of why poetry is important.

Of course, at times it’s easier to have someone explain the truth to you than to experience it directly, but Beach certainly creates the sense of confusion that many of us experience in life’s helter-skelter moments:

Beach

Gale: tiles, roofs whirling,
disappearing at once.

Rocks rumble, mountains
swallow villages,
yet insects, birds chirp by
the shattered bridge.

Men shoot through space,
race sound. On TV nations
maul each other, endlessly.

Why this confusion,
how restore the ravaged
body of the world?

Perhaps this poem just seemed appropriate because President Bush was giving a speech justifying the invasion of Iraq, but we seem to be ready to re-experience nations mauling each other live on TV. And here bloggers stand by “the shattered bridge” chirping their own song amidst our mutual destruction.

In case we feel guilty about enjoying life while others die, Takahashi gives us:

Let’s Live Cheerfully

Dead man steps over sweaty sleepers
on the platform, in quest of peace.

Thunderously dawn lights earth.

Smashed by the train, head spattered
on the track-not a smudge of brain.

Nothing left: thought-smoke.
A moment-a billion years.

Don’t curl like orange peel, don’t ape
a mummified past Uncage eternity.

When self’s let go, universe is all-
O for speed to get past time

All of these are traps, traps not easily avoided, of course. There’s little we can do about most of these tragedies, but his advice seems the same as Yeats’ advice in “Lapis Lazuli,” where the ancient Chinese scholars climbing the mountain midst all the tragedies are still happy: “Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,/Their ancient, glittering eyes are gay.” Of course, his method may be a little different, for it would be difficult to imagine a romantic writer advising, “when self’s let go, universe is all.”

Though Takahashi advice to “be here, be now” will hardly seem new to most readers, it still serves as a necessary reminder that we cannot let our times destroy the joy that is a necessary part of life:

Spring

Spring one hundred years ago
was very warm: it’s in my
palm, such life, such gaiety.

Future is a bird streaking
aimlessly, past is dregs-
everything’s here, now.

Thought sparking thought
sparking thought: headlands
pocked by time, the ram of tides.

Rock rising, rock sinking.
No space, what was is nowhere-
a hundred years hence,

spring will be as warm.

No matter what has happened to us or will happen, spring was warm one hundred years ago and it will be warm one hundred years from now. Life goes on. We cannot control the future and the past is merely the “dregs” of what was. Happiness is here and now. Every thing that’s important is here and now. Only the here and now is controllable, so we must fully participate in it if we are to be happy.

“At The Sky’s Edge,” the title poem of Bei Dao’s work, and “Sower” seem fairly representative of the poems in“Forms of Distance," the first section of At the Sky’s Edge.

Perhaps “At The Sky’s Edge” is the most representative because it contains both the sense of despair and of silent acceptance that is found throughout this section of the book:

AT THE SKY’S EDGE

love among the mountains

eternity, that patience of the earth
simplifies our human sounds
one arctic-thin cry
from deep antiquity until now

rest, weary traveler
a wounded ear’s
already laid your dignity bare
one arctic-thin cry

The startling contrast between the silent mountains that form the sky and the “artic-thin cry from deep antiquity” that seems to symbolize man’s existence emphasizes the paradox of man’s existence. For man is always seeking eternity, always trying to connect with the “patience of the earth,” while simultaneously trying to overcome this sense of despair that haunts his very existence. Why desire to live forever when life is such misery?

While “At the Sky’s Edge” seems to capture that sense of eternity that pervades much of Chinese poetry, “Sower” seems much more topical. It’s hard to read this poem and not think of what is presently happening in our society:

SOWER

a sower walks into the great hall
it’s war out there, he says
and you awash in emptiness
you’ve sworn off your duty to sound the alarm
I’ve come in the name of fields
it’s war out there

I walk out from that great hail
all four directions a boundless harvest scene
I start planning for war
performing death
and the crops I burn
send up the wolf-smoke of warning fires


but something haunts me furiously:
he’s sowing seed across marble floors

Perhaps Bush’s strategy is to outwait those who oppose war with Iraq. Congress’ approval of his invasion of Iraq seems to have passed ages ago, doesn’t it? How long can you protest before being overwhelmed by a sense of despair, “awash in emptiness?”

Considering the number of wars America has fought in the last fifty years, how many wars can you oppose before you decide that you must live your own life, must give up sounding the alarm. How many times can you cry “wolf” before others no longer believe you?

What is gained from burning crops? There’s something deeply ominous in “I start planning for war/ performing death/ and the crops I burn.” How does one “perform” death? Is it a ritual or a conscious act? Can anything good come from “sowing seed across marble floors?” Aren’t seeds spread on such infertile ground doomed to die, or are they the seeds of despair, seeds that will bear a bountiful crop? Will the “Grim Reaper” come to harvest this crop?