The Time of Planting Grains

June 6 - 19

Hydrangeas are blooming, fireflies are flitting, and rice fields are bustling with activity in this season, "The Time for Planting Grains." Joining Alexis and Kit in a new segment is Hiroaki Sato, sharing haiku about a special kigo for this rainy mini-season.

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The Time of Planting Grains
Spotify Companion Playlist

Poems Featured in this Episode

June (from The Poet’s Calendar), by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;
The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights;
I am the fairest daughter of the year.

*

In the evening dusk
A single butterfly
Hovers above the water mirror

— Karahara

***

Amid the summer grasses
A single flower
Mirrored in the water

— Onitsura

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Cool, cool,
Running into the rice paddies
Clear water

— Socho

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flute practice
the rice fields one and all
so green!

— Issa

***

The mosquito smudge
Is also a consolation,
Being alone.

— Issa

***

A matter for congratulation:
I have been bit
By this year’s mosquito’s too

— Issa

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smoking out mosquitoes--
soon the fireflies
are gone too

— Issa

***

Fireflies, by Eugene Lee-Hamilton

Now one by one the live winged sparks of night,
Like souls allowed to wander as they please
Through old loved haunts, go by between the trees
In silent zigzags of alternate light;
And grow in number, bodiless and bright,
So that the eye, too slow to count them, sees
Nothing but fire all round; till by degrees
Quenched in the dawn, they vanish from the sight.
And those more subtle sparks, which they recall,
The countless souls with which regret and love
Once peopled Death's great night, are they quenched too ?
Has Thought's strong dawn, which searches into all,
Reached even them, unpeopling Heaven above,
To leave us nothing but the empty blue?

***

sparkling fireflies--
even the frog's mouth
gapes

— Issa

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The river alone
Darkness is slowing
The fire-flies

— Chiyo-ni

***

three raindrops
and three or four
Fireflies

— Issa

***

with my umbrella
I part the branches
of the willow trees . . .

— Basho

***

Early summer rain
the five thousand five hundredth
rented umbrella

— Issa

***

Hydrangea
in the season of unlined robes
pale blue

— Basho

***

hydrangeas
pale blue in the rain
blue in the moonlight

— Shiki

***

watching the glow
of flickering fireflies
at twilight
love lingers all the more
in a garden colored by hydrangeas

— Fujiwara Ieyoshi

***

A Rose, by Emily Dickinson

A sepal, petal, and a thorn
Upon a common summer's morn,
A flash of dew, a bee or two,
A breeze
A caper in the trees, —
And I'm a rose!

***

two feet tall,
the crimson-budded roses,
their young thorns
tender in
the soft falling rain

— Shiki

***

Wild Strawberries, by Robert Graves

Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon,
Sugar or spice or cream,
Has the wild berry plucked in June
Beside the trickling stream.

***

Summer’s Promise, by Alexis

On walks through my quiet neighborhood
I would spy you
Hanging out on the corner
Or over a wall
Dark, tall, mysterious
With glints of gold I did not know what you were at first
But one day, spied you on display
Nestled between the grapes
Gentle loquat, to me you are
The vision of early summer
And the taste of all the promise that awaits

***