Masters of Wabi
leaf skeleton
frozen in the dog bowl C. JEAN DOWNER |
cold moon
she closes a date C. JEAN DOWNER |
C. Jean Downer attributes an abiding wealth of creativity to living
in a temperate forest near the Pacific Ocean on the traditional, unceded, and
shared territories of Coast Salish peoples. The English language haiku form is
her favourite poetry to compose. Downer’s pieces have appeared in national and
international print and online journals and anthologies. She is a member of
Haiku Canada and the Haiku Society of America.
Commentary
Bash┼Н
once advised that “haikai...needs more
homely images”, and warned poets to preference “vegetable soup rather than duck stew”. Isolation and longing
are two words also often associated with the praxis of wabi, which according to Mahayana Buddhism are in reality
ameliorative traits for an initiate, connoting emancipation from the material
realm and an elevating into purer ways of being. [1]
These two superlative poems by C. Jean Downer satisfy the godfather’s provisos and embody our germane aesthetic in telling
ways which deserve careful scrutinizing. Applying an expression for the first
full moon of winter, appropriated from early aboriginal peoples of the Mohawk
tribe, from the get-go we find a kigo
steeped in history and misfortune, primeval and woebegone. The stuck leaf,
stripped bare in a dish, by its rough and abnormal character, makes a very wabi phrase indeed, and the rustic,
frugal expertise of sewing is acutely relevant toward the folksy side of the
sentiment. In case you were not aware, alongside her stunning haiku and senryu
this poet is also an author to thrilling mystery novels, including the recently
debuted “Lies are Forever”. Her short form
works are no less enigmatic, obeying the progenitor’s eminent sage insight, which
Kenneth Yasuda translates as: “The haiku
that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that
reveal fifty to sixty percent we never tire of.” Each of these pieces
presents an entrancing riddle in its icy mystery and wabi undertones… We must ask ourselves, who or what is no longer
needed in the first poem? The leaf? The dog bowl? The narrator? All of the
above? Similarly, one puzzles over the significance of the date’s closure on a
quilt, in agreement with a chilly lunar image… There are many reasons the
creator may doubly so inscribe their work, to specify its beginning and ending,
to chronicle marriage and divorce, to mark births and deaths. Whatever way the
architect of these dazzling poems intended to answer those questions, or
viewers decide to decipher them, there is a distinct ominousness infused which capitalizes
upon the abstruseness, and weaves moonlight into gold quite didactically
through the medium of wabi!
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