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天高し人間の世は虫の声
high autumn sky ...
in the world of men
voices of insects
...and in Italian (5-7-5):
cielo d'Autunno
nel mondo degli uomini
voci d'insetti
Bellissimo!
Moussia
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I start with the autumn sky, because this is where the mind wandered first ... free in the blue and clear eternity
then reminded that we are in the world of men after all
and now, at my feet, so to say, all these insects (humans) making their noises ...
So the order is given by the way things evolved on this afternoon. zooming in on the idea.
. . . Read my Haiku Archives 2008
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I love the English version. It is so smooth and lovely.
ReplyDeleteF.
Oh I do like this, Gabi...
ReplyDeletethe sight, the sounds...
L.C.
This is a very nice one, Gabi!
ReplyDeleteI thought of the insects as insects with their innumerable and wonderful noises somehow overwhelming even the crazy world of--yes--men! I like your original order. A reminder that nature is here no matter how many ways we try to destroy it.....
wd
It's really lovely, Gabi.
ReplyDelete(if I take 'the world of men' to be 'the human world'... there is that other side of me... one might say somewhat um, disillusioned... which comes in and says , yes, the world of men literally.. whining mosquitoes, shrill cicadas, droning blowflies... which might find its counterpart in the world of insects)
(not counting the many nice blokes on this forum, as well as elsewhere, of course)
L.A.
Gabi, this is lovely. Personally, I like the order of the images also, for lots of reasons...
ReplyDeleteEven though many of these insects would be among the trees, I tend to think of them as being in the grass, close to the soil. So the "camera" (so to speak) is at first tilted up high (the sky), then horizontally (other humans, houses, etc.) and then down below.
Also for me there's a connection between the sky (which has always been around) and the insects (some of the oldest living creatures on earth) and the more relatively recent humans. There's something primordial about this haiku that I really like. Very rich!
W.S. Merwin has a poem in his book The Rain in the Trees that is about this topic-- but his poem far more wordy (two pages if I recall)-- whereas you distill it all into a single breath, with many more possibilities for the reader.
J.