The 'Old Pond' Within Me
Hello, this is Luna ·͜· ❤︎
Hosted by Toyoko Shimotsuma, a comprehensive voice producer,
the Clubhouse program 'Mimi-Biji: Reading Business Books with Your Ears' (commonly known as Mimi-Biji)
The guest from November 3rd to 7th is
the author of 'Writing in Your Own Words',
copywriter Hiroko Sawaragi.
Toyoko Shimotsuma gave me the challenge of
"Let's appreciate Matsuo Basho's haiku 'The old pond, a frog jumps in, the sound of water' by thinking about the author's feelings!"so I decided to give it a try!!
❄︎••┈┈┈┈••❄︎••┈┈┈┈••❄︎
The old pond, a frog jumps in, the sound of water - Matsuo Basho
The old pond is not just a pond, but a 'gateway to space-time'.
This old pond is a place no one approaches.
Into it, an ignorant frog
recklessly
leaped with a splash!
The ripples spreading on the water's surface, like connecting rings,
spread slowly, ever so slowly.
It wasn't that the silence was broken;
it was that the silence began to move.
—I started with this kind of delusion at first.
The delusion kept expanding,
but I couldn't put it into words.
I couldn't convey it in my own words...
So,
what if I were the author?
I wanted to try changing it based on my own experience.
❄︎••┈┈┈┈••❄︎••┈┈┈┈••❄︎
The 'Old Pond' Within Me
Deep within my heart,
I believe there is an 'old pond' that no one can touch.
It is a quiet place where,
for a long time, even past memories and pain have sunk.
••┈┈┈┈••┈┈┈┈••
On a Saturday night,
Tenjin Central Park (Fukuoka) is
filled with the heat and body odor of young people.
Canned chuhai, cigarettes, and laughter
spin around and around
the revolving lantern that is the night.
The next morning,
early Sunday morning,
what drifts through the park before the cleaning begins is
an eerie silence.
Empty cans roll,
cigarette butts are scattered,
and what remains after the humans have vanished—
is it proof of life, or just debris?
Even though the morning air is clear,
the streets of Tenjin are still asleep.
Between the purity and the ugliness,
I head straight to the office.
Caw!
That sound echoed.
In an instant,
the 'old pond' deep in my heart trembled.
Memories of discomfort and fear welled up,
like a black-and-white Hitchcock film.
It tore through the silence,
spreading like ripples.
'The old pond, a frog jumps in, the sound of water' - Matsuo Basho
A haiku that saw the movement of life within the silence.
What jumped into the 'old pond' within me
was not a frog, but a crow—
a pitch-black crow scavenging for trash.
❄︎••┈┈┈┈••❄︎••┈┈┈┈••❄︎
Thank you for reading until the end 🫶🏻💗
#HirokoSawaragi
#ToyokoShimotsuma #MimiBiji #Challenge