From far and near, Hearing the sounds of waterfalls, Young leaves ochikochi ni taki no oto kiku wakaba kana をちこちに 滝の音聞く 若葉哉 buson 蕪村

をちこちに滝の音聞く若葉哉 is a verse of hearing, set in early summer. をちこち, far and near, is the old kana spelling of the word also written 遠近, and as we read it, it makes the waterfalls more than one. 若葉, the young leaves, is the season word, and 哉 closes the verse on them.

The English is Timothy L. Jackowski's, made for Takase Studios.

Yosa Buson paints an amazing scene of early summer where one is surrounded by the sound of waterfalls (rapids) but only sees the fresh new leaves. On the other hand, because of the ambiguity in the original Japanese one could conclude that no one was there to witness the scene and it was the young leaves themselves listening to the waterfalls!

Calligraphy Notes:

1) Ochikochi in modern Japanese is most commonly written in hiragana as おちこち. One also sees it in kanji as 遠近 (which combine the kanji for "far" and "near"). In these designs we use the older kana spelling をちこち, with を where modern Japanese writes お. Both spellings are read "ochikochi".

2) The final "kana" can be written either in hiragana as かな or in kanji as 哉. The meaning is the same.

Translation Notes:

をちこちに
滝の音聞く
若葉哉

1) をちこち (ochikochi) - "distance; far and near; here and there".

2) に (ni) - this is a Japanese part of speech indicating location.

Harold G. Henderson explains ni as, "A preposition with many uses (at, in, to, by, for, etc.). These are usually indicated sufficiently in the literal translations. It is, however, important to realize that when ni is used after words indicating places, there is no action at that place".

3) 滝 (taki) - "waterfall; rapids"

4) の (no) - "indicates possessive". In this case, acts like a "'s" making this "waterfall's" or "waterfalls'".

5) 音 (oto) - "sound; noise" or "sounds; noises"

Thus 滝の音 (taki no oto) is "Waterfalls' sound" or "sound of waterfalls".

6) 聞く (kiku) - to hear; to listen

7) 若葉 (wakaba) - new leaves; fresh verdure

8) 哉 (kana) - how!; what!; alas!

According to Harold G. Henderson kana is, "A special kireji used to mark the end of a haiku. It has an undefinable emotional effect, sometimes like that of a soft sigh, more often that of a preceding 'Ah!' or 'Oh!' It usually follows a noun that the first part of the poem has described. As normal Japanese sentences end with a verb, kana may be considered as in a sense substituting for it."

In her delightful book, "The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan", Ms. Friedman writes:

"Kireji are easy to grasp, she [Momoko] said. These words have no concrete meaning but are sounds that can add emphasis or alter the rhythm of a poem. The most common cut-words are the sounds keri, kana, and ya, although there are many others, too."

Sometimes I would find kireji translated to English as a dash, an exclamation point, or a comma. Some translators insert the exclamation 'Ah' or 'Oh!' in the place of a kireji. A common phrase in Japanese haiku, for example, is samusakana or "the cold kana." By tacking kana on to the end, the word "cold" lasts for a full five syllables, or the duration of one line in a five-seven-five haiku."

In this same sense then "wakaba kana" makes the word "young leaves" last for the full five syllables of the final line of the haiku.

The verse is Buson's, entered in his verse diary 新花摘 (Shin hanatsumi) under the eighth day of the fourth month of 1777, the diary's first dated entry, and printed in 1797, after his death, in a woodblock carved in facsimile from the handscroll his autograph draft was mounted as in 1784.