Crowds of people in colorful garments basking in the spring sun: how stirring, how saddening.

Addendum (May 21, 1989)

What does Basho have to do with my lame attempt at haiku? His original goes like this: “Cormorant fishing: how stirring, how saddening.”[1] According to Lucien Stryk, the translator,

The cormorant is used by fishermen, especially on the Uji river: a metal ring is placed around the bird’s throat so that it cannot swallow the fish it catches. Many tourists watch the leashed birds plunge for the fish.[2]

I hope that my allusion is now plain for everyone to see, for I am not prepared to offer an interpretation that is more exhaustive than this one. This is a matter of ever so slightly misplaced pride, I suppose.

Footnotes

1. On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985, p. 51.

2. Op. cit., p. 90.