Monthly Poem and Pictograph in Earth Language (September 2000)

This page has English, Japanese and EL.

Ms. Kimi Takemura@east bay, CA asked me to try to express the following haiku in EL. She sent the English translation, but it's originally by Kobayashi Issa ( Thanks Sadako@Yokohama to find it ). When Issa was 52, he married with Kiku. She bore four children at an interval of two years, but all died while they were still babies. I'm not sure the certain day when he made this haiku. but this fact and the Buddhism image of this world must be in the back of this haiku...
今月は、サンフランシスコ東湾にお住いの竹村喜美さんからお寄せいただいた一茶の句をとりあげてみます。５０代で結婚し、次々生まれた子どもに赤ん坊のうちに死なれた一茶の、「人の世」への感情が凝縮されていて、翻訳はとてもむつかしいですが・・

The original poem in Japanese

露の世は露の世ながらさりながら

The English translation

The world of dew
Is the world of dew.
And yet, and yet.

The fundamental characters in the pictograph( 絵文字の解説 ):
{28(surface),37(nature), 59(water)}: dew (露)
{38,57,66,67}: baby (fundamental character)(赤ん坊)


 

{37(nature),60(water),28(on surface)}: dew(露)
{37(nature),10(place)}: world(世界)
{gd(d-verb cord),53(existence)}: be, exist (・・だ)
{67(life),11(limit).08(less)}: short life span (たちまち消えるいのち)
{34,62}: I (as the fundamental character) (わたしは)
{gd,53(situation)}{15(recognition),25( joined )}: know that (the matter in the d-brackets) (知っている)
{gb, 06(opposition)}: but (だけど)
repeating  01: (suggestiveness) (余韻を表す点)

In EL, I added the middle line, because I wondered if people can imagine 'dew' as the symbol of 'a very short life' worldwide. Is this the fifth wheel to the coach for you? When the second line is removed, perhaps some more compounding on top of the gb-C-c would be better: like {gb,06(against),{14,15}(understanding)}.