Painting by Lucha of Arcadia aka Marie Skrobot, Ellison Bay, WI, USA
Variations on Bashō’s Frog
Editor’s note: I’ve been collecting variations on the theme of Bashō’s crow for many years (on a withered branch/a crow has settled/autumn nightfall) and just recently came across variations on Bashō’s frog. I thought I would share a few with you.
If the three essentials in my favorite are branch/crow/autumn, here we have pond, frog, splash. – Norbert Blei
Furu ike ya
Kawaza tobikomu
Mizu no oto
(The Original, in Japanese)
The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!
(translated by Alan Watts)
Into the ancient pond
A frog jumps
Water’s sound!
(trans. D.T. Suzuki)
Old pond—frog jumped in—sound of water.
(trans. Lafcadio Hearn)
An old pond—
The sound
Of a diving frog.
(trans. Kenneth Rexroth)
Old pond
leap—-splash
a frog.
(trans. Lucien Stryk)
old pond
frog leaping
splash
(trans. Cid Corman)
The old pond
A frog jumped in,
Kerplunk!
(trans. Allen Ginsberg)
pond
…..frog
………plop
(trans. James Kirkup)
[Source: www.bopsecrets.org]
would not
could not
improve
painting
great
saved
Ploop–
into old pond
the frog.
I am lucky to live next door to a pond which a haiku frog occasionally visits, and one occasionally settles in for a time. We land-dwellers on the shore never really know what is beneath the water. Thanks for this posting of poems and the painting.
Thanks Norb,
Some good things here — not none like the original I don’t think, best, leo
Re: Painting
Who sez: “No frog is an island”?
Norbert~
I thank you
and The Frog thanks you
Lucha
hi norb
thanks for this
let me recommend hiro sato’s wonderful book One Hundred Frogs, which collects quite a few more than a hundred variants of the frog poem (and also serves as an excellent primer on renga)
let me also recommend frogments from the frag pool, by barwin and beaulieu, for a deconstructionist version of the same motive
both are excellent reads, if a bit hard to find
thanks for the reminder to dip into these again
j
Gotta love that frog !
Pond–frog—plop! Who couldn’t love it? Thanks, Norb!
Wonderful to revisit all these delightful variations of an original gem. Don
http://billknottpoetry.blogspot.com/2011/10/after-bashos-frog-here-are-in.html