treehuggerdcg
Tea Leaves
On the road to Suruga
The orange blossoms’
Scent is strong as tea.
I came across this simple, eloquent poem today while eating a banana with my lunch. The poet’s name was Matsuo Kinsaku, but he was better known by his haigō — his pen name. He took his haigō from the banana tree planted outside a small hut built for him by his students. Banana, in Japanese, is Bashō.
Not long after reading Bashō’s poem, I saw this photograph. Orange blossoms and tea, on cloth that resembles the raked sand of a Zen garden.
The poem, the banana, the photo, the orange blossoms — had there been an ancient pond nearby, a frog would have jumped in with a splash.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
