"Nature detonates your mind with the incalculable freshness of the new day"
– Jim Harrison (Day Twenty-Two – 28 Days of Unreason)
Nature calls; frogs splash
Old pond scents familiar –
Dog is relieved
-
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qbit 
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Jane Reichhold* – A Posthumous Analysis of qbit’s “Fresh Start”:
It is fitting that I write about “Fresh Start” from “beyond the grave” as it were. We shall see how this pungent haiku from qbit so fundamentally pivots from the burial ground of Haiku, and attempts just such a fresh start. And isn’t it from the nutrients of the compost heap that new growth feeds?
It is no surprise that qbit’s haiku of this era would culminate in Fresh Start. Many of his haikii from this period seems to struggle against the old, the staid, and shall I say, dead images and language of Basho endlessly rehashed over the last 600 years. But only in Fresh Start does qbit finally make his bold break with the past, while using that past (old pond, frog) as necessary to the present.
What can we really say here, has qbit specifically pissed on the grave of Basho? And in so doing, made commentary on all of the haiku rotting like the smell of death in that old pond? But at the same time that fully honors Basho! Did not Basho challenge the old pond, the stale classical tropes of his time when he let his frog jump? I think Basho would have seen a kindred sprit here. “Nature calls”: isn’t that the fundamental, quiet clarion to all writers of hakiu? “Frog jumps”: without a doubt, pure nod to Basho’s own Fresh Start.
But we also see modernity in the form of the domesticated dog, out for the morning with her master. Nature has become circumscribed by human beings, almost, but not fully domesticated. The dog and the pond (man and nature) are in relationship. And has Mankind pissed on nature in the process?
One complexity is that the dog is “relieved”. She has voided her bowels, certainly. But how else is she relieved? By the familiarity of the pond, by the resumption early in the morning of her daily routine. Does this speak to qbit wanting to keep what is familiar about haiku? Keep the form of the old pond and the frog, even as he rejects them?
What do we make of the obscure epigraph at the beginning, the quote from some unknown poet named Jim? Here we have intimations of nature detonating things, and indescribable freshness of a new day. Aside from the obviousness of the dog’s physical ecstasy at voiding its bowels first thing, can we say that the haiku itself, in its voiding of its bowels, accomplishes the same thing? Does it not detonate traditional haiku while at the same time embracing its “familiar scents”?
Well friends, there is so much more to this haiku that meets the eye. Nature has called us. The frog has jumped once again…
*Apologies to her friends and fans, this is meant in jest.
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I am ever so glad ‘Jane’ said all of that. I was simply going to say that I am relieved you let the frog jump. This is radical, man; radical!
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Ahahaha! Thanks!
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Just need to know if you got a good laugh from either or both.
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I smiled at the allusion of the frog and the double meaning of the relieved dog, but the commentary was the best part of it. Definitely laughed over both!
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You, sir, are the official holder of Haiku Radical, Honorable. Wear it proudly… but briefly.
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You and Jilly seem the only ones willing to out up with me. Bullets and bodily functions have crushed my readership stats. What price art!!! Hope you enjoyed the Jane R send up in the comments.
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It was hysterical! Bullets and Bodily Functions were awesome in concert! “Free Bird!!!”
BTW, my reader stats have sucked out loud this week, to put it poetically. I blame school. In most things I blame school.
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