PINE

to every needle

of the needled pine it clings --

the pearl white dew

forming but to scatter

scattering but to form 

matsu no ha no

ha goto ni musubu

shiratsuyu no    

okite wa kobore           

koborete wa oku                                   

                              

NOTE:   This Masaoka Shiki tanka from 1900 is one of a group of poems he composed about dew upon pine needles.  His translator and biographer, Janine Beichman, thinks this is the best of the series.  Like many people, I have strong feelings about and associations with pine trees.  Having always been up and out-and-about early, I easily recognize the phenomenon and experience  Shiki paints so beautifully and accurately here.  We’ve watched a number of  evergreens grow up from infancy at our house in Tuxedo, New York, both specimens the previous owner planted and our own Christmas trees, which mark all the years of Jane’s childhood.  

Probably my favorite is a tiny ornamental tree we picked up for a song that the grower certainly never meant for post-Christmas planting.  Seeing it standing from our terrace as a mature, but still small, strong, firmly rooted tree, among its now-giant siblings, is wonderful.


Shortly, much too soon for me, my dear daughter will be returning to Maine's  woods where she'll be among millions of fragrant pines, each an individual, but seen from above, from the windows of the low-flying airplanes bound for Portland for example, all part of a vibrant evergreen civilization.  We haven't many pines where we live in Pennsylvania.  I hope and expect Jane will "twig" the change and make friends with the trees in all their changes and all their constancy.