Dew is often used as a metaphor for the brevity of life in a genre of Japanese literature called zen death poetry. A related genre is the jisei or death poem.
He could be saying many things, Mike, and he probably is. That's what I love about it. I remember a girl who was splashed with mud and she looked wonderfully cool to my then teenage eyes.
I read this haiku by Basho this morning and really liked it, and all it's layers of meaning, based on the primary concept that dew is a metaphor for the brevity of life. So here, one presumes that Basho is suggesting that death and life's wear and tear is what gives life its wonderful coolness.
Dabbed with morning dew
and splashed with mud,
the melon looks wonderfully cool.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
So thankful to learn of the Death Poem in the East Asian spiritual world. Us Westerners would do well to consider it as one productive alternative to our fixation on avoidance and its suffering...
He could be saying many things, Mike, and he probably is. That's what I love about it. I remember a girl who was splashed with mud and she looked wonderfully cool to my then teenage eyes.
I read this haiku by Basho this morning and really liked it, and all it's layers of meaning, based on the primary concept that dew is a metaphor for the brevity of life. So here, one presumes that Basho is suggesting that death and life's wear and tear is what gives life its wonderful coolness.
Dabbed with morning dew
and splashed with mud,
the melon looks wonderfully cool.
—Basho, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
It's certainly great imagery, but open to interpretation. Basho might be saying, "Don't be too quick to judge a book by its cover."
So thankful to learn of the Death Poem in the East Asian spiritual world. Us Westerners would do well to consider it as one productive alternative to our fixation on avoidance and its suffering...
It's a much better approach than brainwashing billions of innocent, trusting children with threats of an "eternal hell" for thinking independently.