As the poet gazes down at the old battlefield, he hears in his head the words of the ancient Chinese poet Du Fu and explains: Once the seat of the Northern branch of the Fujiwara family, it was destroyed in 1189. …Having left Edo in late spring of 1689, Matsuo Basho and Sora travel north, arriving at Hiraizumi on June 29th. ![]() …I ponder what this era will leave behind and what will be remembered. Stonehenge or Easter Island, The statues are huge, heavy, and in the middle of nowhere, a long way from any stone which could make them…. Adding to the mystery, all the objects in the area are made from a type of grey stone of which there are no deposits in the vicinity. They seem to pre-date the current Bada people. The locals don't have a clue – 'They've always been here,' is the most common response if you ask someone where the statues came from. They date anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 years old. Nobody really knows how old the Bada megaliths are, or who made them, or even why they're there. This statue (locally named, Palindo “the entertainer”) ![]() I remember this trip, not so much for the jeep ride, but because in the Bada Valley we trekked to see these mysterious statues. Amongst the fear, I do recall an impression of beauty about the valley. The burned out car wreckages lining the slopes did not allay our fears. My travel companion thought we would die as the jeep careened around the crumbling path that clung to the slopes. This jeep was stacked seemingly with the possessions of 3 families, their chickens and their wares, and us. Getting to the valley would involve a jeep ride. We heard about puzzling megaliths in the Bada Valley. The scariest vehicle ride I had was in Indonesia. This triggered my memory of my most terrifying vehicle ride. He recalled a terrifying taxi ride when young. I was reminded of this in a recent exchange with a philosopher. 古池や蛙飛こむ水のおと Furuike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no otoįu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya, ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into) mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound) The frog haiku also comes back to me in quiet / surprising moments in nature. I encountered old pond / Frog leap / splash around the same time. I first came across it at 14 years old as I stumbled across Japanese and Chinese literature. Natsukusa ya | Tsuwamonodomo ga | Yume no ato ~ Basho (c. Sadly, milk and honey just wasn’t my kind of book.This week I’ve been reflecting on a haiku that I have returned to over and over across the years. ![]() Some people may read this collection of poems and come out loving this a lot more than I did. ![]() The text doesn’t shy away from rape, abuse, or sex. The poetry, the story, is actually pretty…graphic, I suppose, especially when paired with the drawings. There are also drawings that go with some of the poems. The story is told in four parts, some pages with two lines of poetry, and others with a full block of text written down the page. But the way the prose is written, the message just kind of falls flat for me and I came out of reading this with a meh reaction to it all. I think the message of the book, that you should just be yourself in order to find happiness and not settle for anyone who gives you less, is a strong one. I didn’t feel a sense of empowerment in any way after reading this. Maybe more so than other writing forms, because I just didn’t connect with any of the poems. I’m sorry to say that I was not impressed by milk and honey. milk and honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look. It is split into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose, deals with a different pain, heals a different heartache. It is about the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. Milk and honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. Links: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Goodreads | Kobo SYNOPSIS
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