Pentimento: Poetry Friday: This Dewdrop World

Friday, March 25, 2011

Poetry Friday: This Dewdrop World

This dewdrop world
It is but a dewdrop
And yet – and yet

-- Issa

More Poetry Friday at A Year of Reading.

10 comments:

Rodak said...: Like.; March 25, 2011 at 8:08 AM
Pentimento said...: Yeah. It's sort of the meta-poem.; March 25, 2011 at 8:11 AM
Mary Lee said...: So much said and not said with two words: "and yet."; March 25, 2011 at 9:12 AM
Pentimento said...: Yes, it makes the poem really heartbreaking, I think. Issa was a Buddhist priest, so he was trained to see the world and its phenomena as impermanent, and not to become attached to them -- and yet . . . He wrote the poem after the death of one of his young children (if I'm not mistaken, all of his children died in childhood).; March 25, 2011 at 9:17 AM
Anonymous said...: So graceful and so painful at the same time (more so knowing about the loss of his children). Beautiful.; March 25, 2011 at 9:34 AM
Pentimento said...: There's a universe of grief in that repetition of "and yet," isn't there?; March 25, 2011 at 9:38 AM
Karen Edmisten said...: Beautiful. Sad. Beautiful.; March 25, 2011 at 10:32 AM
Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

Had I read it at a more vulnerable time, it would have broken my heart.

Not knowing who Issa is, I also had an automatic guess about his background that was completely different to the reality.

And now I wish I had a similar gift for encapsulating volumes--or as you call them, universes--in a few little words, because otherwise I could never say why this poem is so beautiful.; March 26, 2011 at 6:09 AM
Pentimento said...: Enbrethiliel, I think it must be the real goal of every true artist -- to say everything while appearing to say nothing. It's the highest art.; March 26, 2011 at 7:56 AM
Andromeda Jazmon said...: Love it! Great photo paring too. I was reading Issa to my first graders this week, to teach them about haiku. He is wonderful!; March 27, 2011 at 6:36 AM