Dee Evetts
Essay #20 March/April 2024
This essay was — and still is — intended as a follow-up to the one published in the previous issue of tsuri-dōrō, under the title “The Presence of Awe in Haiku”. However, I have after some reflection shifted my ground during the intervening months, and as a consequence arrived at the title above. This in part reflects the fact that I received several responses to the earlier piece that queried my use of the term awe in this context. For some readers that word apparently signals fear just as much — or as often — as wonder. Accordingly I went back to my lifelong mentor and arbiter, the Oxford English Dictionary. This is what I found:
1. Terror, dread
2. Reverential fear or wonder
Clearly I must concede that order of presentation. Yet I would still pose the following question: in our everyday conversation and discussions, how often do we use or hear the word “awe” in the sense of wonder, and how often with connotations of fear? I would confidently wager that the ratio is better than ten to one in favor of wonder. (As an example, consider the statement: “I am completely in awe of her achievements.”) All that aside, I feel that in my previous essay I strayed rather carelessly into what has proved to be a sticky semantic area, and have resolved to find firmer ground in this one. Once again I opened my trusted OED, and mined its pages in order to assemble a larger vocabulary for discussing this overall theme. (Why did I not reach for a thesaurus? Because a list of synonyms or near-synonyms is not useful in this situation — or only very briefly.) I already knew what I was looking for. Besides “wonder” and “wondrous”, I needed to investigate the various connotations of “mystery/mystical”, as well as “divine” and “numinous”. What I brought back from this very enjoyable foray has provided me with some semantic tools — some definitions, that is — that I think will serve our current purpose. Below are the notes I made for myself:
“awe” — (see above)
“wonder” — amazement, admiration
“mysterious” — difficult to understand or explain, of obscure origin
“mystical” — having a hidden or esoteric meaning
“numinous” — spiritual, divine
It might be helpful at this point to briefly revisit the haiku that I offered as examples in my previous essay. Readers may wish to click-and-scroll back to them at some point. I shall refer to the poems either by first line or by author, if not both. Right away I am willing to affirm that the word “awe” is apt — by my reading of them — with reference to the first two poems presented (being Roseliep’s “he removes his glove” and Harter’s “distant thunder”). Moving on to John Will’s’ “the moon at dawn” I have concluded that the word “mysterious” fits best here. As for the next group of four, half a page beyond that, I am now disposed to describe these as “enigmatic”. Right away I realize this word has to to be added to the linguistic/semantic tool-bag I cobbled together above. The dictionary gives its definition as “mysterious and difficult to understand”. From among these four poems I find that Matthew Louviére’s “blue hydrangeas” has a subtly different flavor, being perhaps more celebratory than enigmatic. For me its tone includes also a touch of wonder, and even of joy. To conclude — and to be brief — if I were restricted to one-word labels (heaven forfend such dire straits) to stick on each each poem in the final group of four featured in that essay, commencing with Ross’s “spring morning”, these would be: “enigmatic, enigmatic, mysterious, revelatory”.
Coming back to the present, I am taking a moment to caution myself with regard to this latest tool. The word “enigmatic” per se conveys no more than inscrutable, hard to fathom, ambiguous. As such it frequently opens the door to the mysterious and even the mystical. But it need not necessarily do so.
In light of all the above, let us examine the following three poems, from Pamela A. Babusci, w.f. owen, and Yvonne Hardenbrook:
snow-covered village … day’s end
i follow a stranger’s footprints reaching the edge
over the bridge of the map
solstice afternoon
the ice-cube in my tea
turns over
Babusci’s haiku has to my ear some clear Japanese connotations (think of all those Hiroshige prints!) yet obviously this does not effect the likelihood of this poem being based on the poet’s own experience. There are plenty of remote townships in New England, for example — and no lack of snow. I do find her poem mysterious, and compelling — as well as open-ended. Will the poet get to meet this stranger? How far ahead is he or she? And come to that, are these footprints indicative of gender? In the next poem w.f. owen shows us another walker or hiker, and here we have a medley of connotations. There certainly may be apprehension — close kin to fear — yet at the same time there could be excitement in the face of a fresh challenge. All this is based on taking the poem literally. We cannot exclude that the poet intends it more metaphorically — the day’s journey being over, one faces the uncharted territory of sleep and dreams, etc. But I find myself putting that interpretation to the back of my mind. The real-life alternative is too intriguing.
Yvonne Hardenbrook’s “solstice afternoon” is delightfully light-hearted, even humorous. The idea — a notion merely flirted with, I take it — that there could be any causal connection between the solstice and the behaviour of an ice-cube is patently absurd. And at the same time compelling. I shall place this in the “mystery” basket. (And a rare specimen it is.) Quite aside from the dodgy science, I enjoy this sketch of a languid afternoon in the antipodes.
Today I feel as if I were standing on the edge of a landscape, in which as far as the eye can see there are mysteries small and large that have been visited by haiku poets over the decades. I have decided to take my time exploring this terrain, and treat this as the second in a ongoing series of essays on the topic. Given the larger time frame, I would welcome receiving any comments from readers, as well as suggestions with regard to haiku that might be featured in the future.
Let us conclude with four poems by Cor van den Heuvel, whom I regard as the maestro of mystery in haiku. It is easy to overlook this aspect of his work while we are being seduced by the originality or clarity of an image.
city street an empty wheelchair
the darkness inside rolls
the snow-covered cars in from the waves
the sun goes down high above the city
my shovel strikes a spark dawn flares
from the dark earth from a window-washer’s pail
I shall leave readers to dwell with these poems as and when they will, and consider where they might be placed on a personal fear/wonder/mystery spectrum — if they belong at all.
