The following post is an excerpt from Haiku by R. H. Blyth. This book, published in a series of four volumes, is a superb collection of poetry and a masterful work of commentary. One of my favorite books.
A breeze blowing
On the hairs on thin shanks ;
The change of clothes.
This, by Buson, is one of those verses which make us wonder at the delicacy of the poetical mind of the Japanese, and their faith in what is what is small and insignificant. In Moby Dick, Melville says :
We expand to bulk. To produce a mighty volume you must have a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.
This is true, but it is not the only truth. The hairs on the legs of the man who has put on new spring clothes has a meaning, a slender rapier-like meaning that is not as big as a barn door,—but ’twill suffice. Toho says :
Out in the fields,
Together with the birds,
I will be surrounded by mist.
He could say, no doubt,
Casting the body’s vest aside
My soul into the boughs does glide ;
There, like a bird, it sits and sings,
Then whets and claps its silver wings,
but to say so seems to somehow spoil it. Together with the birds he be surrounded by the morning mist. That is enough.