Today is January 7, and I am going to have rice porridge with seven kinds of spring herbs, following a long tradition that is meant to wish for healthy lives. Apparently, one of the seven kinds is the Japanese parsley I wrote yesterday, however, I can’t tell which one that is out of these in a “seven herbs set” I bought at a grocery store.
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Had to finely chop the seven spring flowers (vegetables)/
For my weak mother/
Calligraphy and translation by Chio
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As a matter of fact, any kind of food must be chopped finely for old, weak people.
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If you have a favorite character or phrase that you would like me to write, please let me know by sending it (them) to my address, chio_art@yushokai.com.
Someone mentioned『星月夜』or “a very bright night sky”, literally “stars, moon, night” to my request asking for a favorite letter (character) or word, saying she loves the phrase because it is just very beautiful, and that she likes the famous painting by Van Gogh, as well.
As a matter of fact, I, too, like this beautiful phrase very much and had put it into my own haiku I wrote while looking after my mother still alive at that time.
The photo shows my work composed of three parts, that is, my tanka, my haiku and some comments. At times when my mother had bad moods, I used to take her out putting her in her wheel chair, which happened even after dinner a number of times.
One evening like that, the evening star and the crescent moon were seen beautifully in the sky as if they were facing each other and smiling at each other.
The first tanka part is my description of it and the second part is a haiku I wrote imagining taking mother’s hand and flying in the night sky together, and here I used the phrase『星月夜』.
And the last part is my comment that I was truly amazed to see my mother “expressed gratitude” to the beauty of the stars just because I had never thought she was that kind of person.
I didn’t write here, however, after returning home, she even said she should have put her hands together to give deep gratitude to the beautiful stars, which surprised me so much.
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If you have a favorite character or phrase that you would like me to write, please let me know by sending it (them) to my address, chio_art@yushokai.com.
The photo shows one of the many collaborated works with my late mother. The two big letters “lily” were by my mother and I added my haiku about white lilies. The flower shop I went to today didn’t carry white ones. My entrance is filled with the strong, sweet fragrance characteristic of the flowers now.
“Write your own poems” said my second calligraphy teacher. Then immediately I thought I could never write haiku’s or tanka’s. Later, however, I had a second thought that copyright issues will never bother me as far as I choose my own poems as motifs for my calligraphic works.
The first half of the piece is my tanka about my mother’s joy and gratitude when she saw the beauty of the Venus and the moon shining close to each other that we saw while taking a wheel chair walk in one evening; the latter half is my haiku which I wrote about my fancy afterward that we flew in the evening sky together.
I found this one, the very first collaboration with my late mother and myself while I was putting her calligraphy in order. I asked her to write an Ensō and then I wrote a passage from Tao Te Ching on it. It was for my first solo exhibition in 2009.
Sometime ago, at a calligraphy exhibition I saw a piece composed with the initial letters of a mother’s name and those of her daughter placed at the head of the lines. I tried the same thing, and here is what was lightly framed.
For the first time in months, I paid a visit to the hospital my late mother used to go and see her doctor, just wondering how many times I took her there.
