The other day I was on a walk with my son and he seemed to find a neverending supply of sticks and twigs on the ground. He's pick one up, use it as a play sword for a few blocks, then discard it for the next. This isn't an uncommon thing. He seems to constantly find them.

Anyway, the other day I was reading a book about Hosai and came across this haiku of his and immediately recalled my son finding so many sticks. Let's look at it.

枯枝ほきほき折るによし
*kare-eda hoki hoki oru ni yoshi *

dead branches
it's pleasing to
snap them
—Hosai

(trans. David LaSpina^[1])

^{ChatGPT's interpretation of the original haiku + my translation and this post}

As usual for Hosai, this is a very short haiku, shunning the traditional form for a free verse interpretation. I'd almost say it works better as two lines in English, but I'll go with three just out of convention. The middle of the haiku hoki hoki is just an onomatopoeia (a sound effect word), so literally we have snap snap, making it more literally something like:

dead branches
snap snap
good to break

That might actually work better than what I wrote at the top. Hmm... what do you think?

"Dead Branches" is a kigo (season word) for winter, but since Hosai rarely used season words, we are left to wonder if the setting here indeed is winter or if he just wanted a scene with dead branches. There are many dead branches to be found at other times of the year, after all. The kigo typically refers to dead branches that are still in the tree, anyway, whereas in Hosai's poem I get the feeling they are on the ground.

What we might be slightly more certain of is that it is likely a subtle nod to Bashō and one of his most famous haiku:

枯朶に烏のとまりけり秋の暮
kare-eda ni karasu no tomari keri aki no kure

on a withered branch
sits a crow—
autumn nightfall
—Bashō
(trans. David LaSpina^[1])

That one is often considered the first really great haiku Bashō ever penned and the one to elevate him to the most famous haiku poet in the country. It is so famous that any mention of kare-eda in haiku immediately brings it to mind. As a student of the genre, Hosai absolutely would have been aware of this, making his choice of words purposeful.

Hosai's haiku poems very often featured a starkness or emptiness and sense of depression, echoing his own depression, so the setting here also fits well with his normal theme. At the same time, the dead branches setting also evokes the aesthetics of wabi-sabi, embracing the beauty of the impermanent.

All in all, an interesting poem from Hosai!

【Also published on my website】

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.

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1. That is, me! If you like this translation, feel free to use it. Just credit me. Also link here if you can. ↩ ↩