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Ken Jones’ The Long Wait haibun, and the essay Liberative Haiku (BS 12/1) are striking and effective works. In the latter, he expresses two points memorably. First: ‘If metaphor is insufficiently open then the poet’s meaning invades the imagery. Readers are obliged to share the writer’s subjectivity and are left no space for their own’. Then: ‘Only when the mind is still does it become a clear pool in which “the thousand things” are faithfully reflected. It is from the contemplative mind that existential haiku come forth’. KJ quotes many clinchers, for example:-

The ends of the warriors’ bows      as they go, brushing       the dew   (Buson)

The second point is as useful as the first. Many of the finest quarterly haiku are written after at least an acquaintance with Zen, and more than a few from those who are committed to some form of it. These are the sons of Levi, and keep the Temple and the ways of the Lord. However, there were 12 or 13 tribes of Israel, and though Basho be a sacred text, different interpretations are still possible: e.g.

1 Ueda (Matsuo Basho), who follows the original phrase order, comments: ‘Basho, at the house of some friends, creates a feeling that for him at the moment nothing exists but the flower’s pure whiteness. This poem could not be written in the absence of serenity’.

2 Robert Aitken (A Zen Wave) says: ‘For Zen students, this is reminiscent of the expression often used by their teachers: “Not a bit of cloud in the empty sky meets my eyes”. It is shunyata, the void, experienced at the deepest human level.’

3 This is an elegant compliment to the charm and propriety of the lady of the house.

4 The chrysanthemum is not an elegant flower. The hostess may not have been beautiful, virtuous or even clean, so the verse is paradox, irony or sarcasm.

5 The bed of chrysanthemums is the whole company. Basho catches a moment of perfection in the conviviality.

6 The distinguished poet, apparently absorbed in the chrysanthemum(s), realises that everyone is wondering why, and breaks the tension with a light remark.

7 The (white chrysanthemums of) eye to meet see dust even none (Aitken) is not said by the poet, but attributed to him by one of the others, who is amused by the poet’s screwing up his face at the vase of flowers.

8 The absence of dust, a necessary and equally virtuous creature in Buddhist thought, is not necessarily a plus. Basho is making a protest against artificial flower arrangements.

9 The verse was the hokku for a renga. Ueda (Basho & his Interpreters)  transliterates as white-chrysanthemum ,/’eye / in / catching / see / dust / even / non-existence. The splendour and transcendence of the chrysanthemums is placed against the insignificance and dust of mortality, and the urgency in the intent  gaze sharpens the challenge of the deep motion before the House.

10 The language of Basho is reputedly as distant as Shakespeare’s: there could be other suggestions. One Japanese commentator (see Ueda: Basho  and his Interpreters) feels the cold of the November morning in the verse.

11 The scene is an instance of ‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’,  and, amongst other possibilities,

12 As in the moon is clear / I take home a lovely boy / afraid of the fox, Basho  is guying himself or playing to the gallery. Look at me!

     Nevertheless, both the ‘Zen’ and the utilitarian poet can agree that however many meanings the verse has, it was not painfully constructed;  any polishing was instinctive. The mind was ‘empty’ and ‘still’. But also ‘charged’, and the creation took place ‘in the quick forge and forcing-house’ of the wits. This is all metaphor: the skull was as full of grey matter as ever, the brain was ticking over, no epileptic fit followed, and workshops and greenhouses are irrelevant. Only when he came to put it on the scales may Basho  have realised he had caught a rare fish. Out of the Void indeed, but the materials were all to hand. The verse may be lighter in style than warriors’ bows, but no less ‘heavy’ in implication.

     The spiritual and Zen poets may not share explanations with those who think they are not sure if they are scientists, artists or entertainers; but the two groups can agree on common perceptions; and there is no necessary conflict.

     One last point. A haiku is not a saying or aphorism, yet it can be brought into writing or conversation illustratively or to clinch a point in the same way, often with more subtlety, from its multiple meanings.