It was just by a chance that I got to know there are peacocks in a nearby shrine. Then, I searched for a haiku and a poem from ancient China with a “peacock” motif. I soon found both but they both are poems on spring season, which means I was a little late to do this.
This is the first seasonal phrase for the month of May. The sentence is: Frogs begin croaking in plow-land, which imply summer season begins and farm activities also start in earnest.
Today falls on the first day of summer on the old calendar. Unfortunately, though, it is rainy now and the weather forecast says it will be rainy all day. The photo shows two little works my teacher gave me that I asked to be arranged on a panel board. The right one is his own haiku on this day, the first day of summer.
Apparently, this is the original story for the reason people attach much importance to irises on the occasion of Boys festival on Mary 5th: A strange old man said he would obtain immortality by eating irises. But right after he said that he disappeared into thin air. Stories from ancient China about mountain hermits with psychic powers are very interesting. Now I remember that decades ago my teacher wrote a passage as a model for me to practice from an ancient Chinese poem that features an old man with green hair. At that time, I instantly thought I would write the whole poem. But a long, long time has passed since then without my performance.
This is a part of an old children’s song about carp streamers that people fly to celebrate and wish for boys’ healthy growth and bright future. An acquaintance of mine will be celebrating his son’s first boys festival with his wife. I did this wishing for the baby’s bright, prosperous future.
I chose this phrase as a motif for my calligraphy work from a website about Zen words. I learned the passage says that falling flowers, flowing water, moving clouds and sound of flutes don’t adhere to anything; they just come and disappear without leaving any traces.
I did this part being rather depressed because even if I looked at the models very intensely, somehow or other I couldn’t reproduce the works. However, I was beginning to feel again my teacher’s breathing and his movement of the arm holding the brush.