Spring Equinox

March 20 - April 4

In this reflective episode, Alexis and Kit joyfully welcome brighter days, remember springs past amid wildflower meadows and cherry blossoms, and look forward to the shining future. Hiroaki Sato leaves “Hiro’s Corner” to join our co-hosts for an interview about haiku.

Spring Equinox Companion Playlist

Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple, and Spotify.

Poems Featured in this Podcast

“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes.

“And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the spring came and crowned everything it possibly could into that one place.”

– Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

***

"March bustles in on windy feet
And sweeps my doorstep and my street.
She washes and cleans with pounding rains,
Scrubbing the earth of winter stains.
She shakes the grime from carpet green
Till naught but fresh new blades are seen.
Then, house in order, all neat as a pin,
She ushers gentle springtime in."
— Susan Reiner, Spring Cleaning

***

From a court lady
I get some Botamochi -
spring equinox
– Buson

***

Rice cake with bean paste
for the crossroads Buddha...
spring breeze
– Issa

***

Sparkling, the blue boat in the shining wind
– Junko Tamaki

***

In the shining wind, white flowers bloom in the handkerchief

– Sachiko Hagiya

***

Lively talking
About local lore and legend
Shining wind
– Atsuko Oyanagi

***

Do I hear
the sound of spring
dawn rain?
– Kazuhiko Endo

***

Pulled
From my dream,
the spring dawn.
– Kazuo Hosoka

***

The thrush sings
In spring dawn
A star remains
– Akio Nagata

***
Spring peace--
a mountain monk peeks
through the hedge
– Kobayashi Issa

***

Spring peace–
After rain, a gang war
Garden sparrows.
– Kobayashi Issa

***

I do not grieve that the willow catkins have flown away
But that, in the Western Garden,
The fallen red cannot be gathered.
When dawn comes and the rain is over,
Where are the traces they have left?
A pond full of brock duckweeds!
Of all the clors of springtime,
Two thirds have gone with the fust
And one-third with the flowing water!
When you look closely,
These are not willow catkins,
But, drop after drop, parted lovers’ tears!
— Su Shih

***

Up to your crown, O willow, dressed in the green of jades,
Myriads of twigs so verdant, droop like your silken braids.
Who knows who the tailor is, who’s cut your leaves so fine? It’s
The vernal winds past February, sharp as the scissors’ blades.
— He Zhizhang

***

“No, you don't understand, naturally' said the second swallow. 'First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us...'I tried stopping on one year,' said the third swallow. 'I had grown so fond of the place that when the time came I hung back and let the others go on without me. For a few weeks it was all well enough, but afterwards, O the weary length of the nights! The shivering, sunless days! The air so clammy and chill, and not an insect in an acre of it! No, it was no good; my courage broke down, and one cold, stormy night I took wing, flying well inland on account of the strong easterly gales. It was snowing hard as I beat through the passes of the great mountains, and I had a stiff fight to win through; but never shall I forget the blissful feeling of the hot sun again on my back as I sped down to the lakes that lay so blue and placid below me, and the taste of my first fat insect. The past was like a bad dream; the future was all happy holiday.”

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

***

The first sparrow of spring!
The year beginning with younger hope than ever!
The faint silvery warblings
heard over the partially bare and moist fields from
the bluebird, the song sparrow, and the red-wing,
as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell!

***

“Just listen to them birds – th’ world seems full of ‘em – all whistlin’ an’ pipin’,” he said. “Look at ‘em dartin’ about, an’ hearken at ‘em callin’ to each other. Come springtime seems like as if all th’ world’s callin’. The leaves is uncurlin’ so you can see ‘em – an’, my word, th’ nice smells there is about!”

***

Like warbling pure haiku
mountain
cuckoo
— Issa

***

"When April scatters charms of primrose gold
Among the copper leaves in thickets old,
And singing skylarks from the meadows rise,
To twinkle like black stars in sunny skies;

When I can hear the small woodpecker ring
Time on a tree for all the birds that sing;
And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and long --
The simple bird that thinks two notes a song."
— William Henry Davies, April's Charms

***

The canola flowers,
And the tide goes back
The small stream.
– Kawahigashi Hekigoto

***

The impact of canola flowers
everywhere obscures the Rivers of Yodo and Katsura
— Gonsui

***

Bitter green, sweet gold
With this sip, I remember
Riverside flowers
– Alexis

***

This tidy tea room
Brightened by these golden buds -
the warm light of spring
— Kit

***

It's better to be a buttercup out in the grass
Where a hundred children pass,
And at evening drink the dew,
Than be you,
Poor little rich flower,
Shut up in a lady's bower.
Does the lady look your way
Any day?
Ever stoop to you and bless?
Give your head a soft caress?
You are such a tiny part
Of all her things. Her heart
A crowded palace is; but O, to know the bliss
Of being meadow-glad—like this—
You should be out in the grass
Where the happy children pass—
We would like to welcome you
To our sunshine, rain, and dew,
Flower, in a lady's bower.

***

The Seedling by Paul Laurence Dunbar

As a quiet little seedling
Lay within its darksome bed,
To itself it fell a-talking,
And this is what it said:
"I am not so very robust,
But I'll do the best I can;"
And the seedling from that moment
Its work of life began.

So it pushed a little leaflet
Up into the light of day,
To examine the surroundings
And show the rest the way.
The leaflet liked the prospect,
So it called its brother, Stem;
Then two other leaflets heard it,
And quickly followed them.

To be sure, the haste and hurry
Made the seedling sweat and pant;
But almost before it knew it
It found itself a plant.
The sunshine poured upon it,
And the clouds they gave a shower;
And the little plant kept growing
Till it found itself a flower.

Little folks, be like the seedling,
Always do the best you can;
Every child must share life's labor
Just as well as every man.
And the sun and showers will help you
Through the lonesome, struggling hours,
Till you raise to light and beauty
Virtue's fair, unfading flowers.

***

“Putting in the Seed”

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

***

“To-day is very beautiful — just as bright, just as blue, just as green and as white and as crimson as the cherry-trees full in bloom, and the half-opening peach-blossoms, and the grass just waving, and sky and hill and cloud can make it, if they try. How I wish you were here … you thought last Saturday beautiful, yet to this golden day 't was but one single gem to whole handfuls of jewels…” – Emily Dickinson

***

A lovely spring night
suddenly vanished while we
viewed cherry blossoms
– Matsuo Basho

***

Gazing at them, immersed,
I become so intimate
with the blossoms;
and with the falling away and separation
comes sorrow
— Saigyo (1118-1190)

***

Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of spring—these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration.
– Yoshida Kenko, Essays in Idleness (1330-1332)

***

If there were no such thing
as cherry blossoms
in this world,
in springtime how untroubled
our hearts would be!
— Ariwara no Narihira

***

"Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now" by A. E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.