Bashō 5/22/14

When I sat down to view the assigned video about the work of Matsuo Bashō I was in the middle of a very busy work day, taking a moment out to work on the assignments for my summer course. I think the fact that I was thus preoccupied helped me to really notice the impact of the music and the visual arts contained in the video helped me to more fully appreciate the words themselves.

   From the start, I was transported. The slow and simplistic music forced me out of the up-beat and driven way of life that is my work world. I felt my heart rate slow and noticed my entire body starting to ease out of the tension-filled state it tends to be in while I’m working. The visual arts similarly plucked me out of place and time and took me, ever so briefly, somewhere else. The first time through I didn’t even attempt to follow the words, I turned up the volume on my speakers and merely allowed myself to tune out the world and lose myself in this presentation.

    Upon viewing the presentation a second time, I noticed that the first picture was revealing a setting that could have represented the place about which the poet was writing. Subsequent pictures previewed the cherry blossoms that would later be mentioned and also showed images representative of people in the culture from which the poetry came. The reference to a “century past” was enhanced by pictures of a small oriental village that was clearly from an earlier time. The fishing boats, accompanied by pictures of same, came alive in my mind.

    It wasn’t until the third viewing that I realized that the poem is very much talking about the passing of time and the process of aging. The picture of the old man at the beginning might have been a picture of the poet. The young woman wrapping dumplings might have been a reminder of youth, of time long past, perhaps even a young lover long forgotten. Falling leaves, the mention of death, sorrow expressed over the ships sailing away, the end of the “sweet spring night of cherry blossom viewing” ending, the withered branch, the fall of autumn night, all are allusions to the passage of time and aging. The final images of the moon rising over water and a lone tree standing on a high ridge call to mind the onset of night and a possible resting place.

    The poem alone is interesting, but were this a mere reading assignment I would have most likely skimmed it without taking much notice. The addition music and visual artistry, however, forced me into a different state of mind. From that vantage point I experienced and enjoyed the poem in ways I never would have otherwise.