This is a small poetry club that started as a poetry email exchange between two friends. Our goal is to read a poem everyday, and this blog is one way to help keep us accountable. There is only one valid rule in poetry club: there are no rules in poetry club. Read any poem, in any order, with any or no interactions. You decide. We only suggest you read poetry!
This questions who is actually the "thief"...the giver and taker of Life? And that Life itself, the moon, the thief, the subject, in fact cannot really be taken at all. It all just is.
Is the narrator making a suggestion about the value of material objects.
Thieves take things of value. The moon appears one of the things the thief didn't take.
It's a fun poem. I love short poems that can say so much with so little. This poem does that extremely well. I'm jealous, and am have my newests poetry idea or aspirations.
I just read this again after seeing the full moon this past weekend and your comment on thieves taking things of value. So often in our lives and in our world these days, the items we value are so askew. The fact that the thief left behind such a magnificent "object" tells a lot about the thief, himself and also about the person watching at the window...begging the question into the reader's value and the portrait painted by the left behind moon.
I came across this short backstory behind this haiku and really enjoyed its concept. It's so interesting how one more piece of knowledge can change a poem and how we read them- similar to getting to know more about the poet themselves. Perspective....:
"This is just what Ryokan wrote after the thief had gone. The whole story is beautiful…. One night a thief entered into Ryokan’s small hut. Ryokan had only one blanket which he used day and night to cover his body. That was his only possession. He was lying down but he was not asleep, so he opened his eyes and saw the thief entering. He felt great compassion for him because he knew there was nothing in the house. “If the poor fellow had informed me before, I could have begged something from the neighbors and kept it here for him to steal. But now what can I do?” Seeing that there was nothing, that he had entered into a monk’s hut, the thief started to go out. Ryokan could not resist. He gave his blanket to the thief. The thief said, “What are you doing? You are standing naked. It is a very cold night!” He said, “Don’t be worried about me. But don’t go empty-handed. I have enjoyed this moment, you have made me feel like a rich man. Thieves usually enter the palaces of emperors. By your entering here my hut has also become a palace, I have also become an emperor. In my joy this just a gift.” Even the thief felt sorry for him and he said, “No, I cannot receive this gift because you don’t have anything. How you are going to pass the night? It is so cold, and it is getting colder!” Ryokan said with tears in his eyes, “You remind me again and again of my poverty. If it was in my power I would have taken hold of the full moon and given it to you.” When the thief left he wrote in his diary: The thief left it behind — The moon at the window."
This questions who is actually the "thief"...the giver and taker of Life? And that Life itself, the moon, the thief, the subject, in fact cannot really be taken at all. It all just is.
ReplyDeleteIs the narrator making a suggestion about the value of material objects.
DeleteThieves take things of value. The moon appears one of the things the thief didn't take.
It's a fun poem. I love short poems that can say so much with so little. This poem does that extremely well. I'm jealous, and am have my newests poetry idea or aspirations.
I just read this again after seeing the full moon this past weekend and your comment on thieves taking things of value. So often in our lives and in our world these days, the items we value are so askew. The fact that the thief left behind such a magnificent "object" tells a lot about the thief, himself and also about the person watching at the window...begging the question into the reader's value and the portrait painted by the left behind moon.
DeleteI came across this short backstory behind this haiku and really enjoyed its concept. It's so interesting how one more piece of knowledge can change a poem and how we read them- similar to getting to know more about the poet themselves. Perspective....:
ReplyDelete"This is just what Ryokan wrote after the thief had gone. The whole story is beautiful…. One night a thief entered into Ryokan’s small hut. Ryokan had only one blanket which he used day and night to cover his body. That was his only possession. He was lying down but he was not asleep, so he opened his eyes and saw the thief entering. He felt great compassion for him because he knew there was nothing in the house. “If the poor fellow had informed me before, I could have begged something from the neighbors and kept it here for him to steal. But now what can I do?”
Seeing that there was nothing, that he had entered into a monk’s hut, the thief started to go out. Ryokan could not resist. He gave his blanket to the thief. The thief said, “What are you doing? You are standing naked. It is a very cold night!”
He said, “Don’t be worried about me. But don’t go empty-handed. I have enjoyed this moment, you have made me feel like a rich man. Thieves usually enter the palaces of emperors. By your entering here my hut has also become a palace, I have also become an emperor. In my joy this just a gift.”
Even the thief felt sorry for him and he said, “No, I cannot receive this gift because you don’t have anything. How you are going to pass the night? It is so cold, and it is getting colder!”
Ryokan said with tears in his eyes, “You remind me again and again of my poverty. If it was in my power I would have taken hold of the full moon and given it to you.”
When the thief left he wrote in his diary:
The thief
left it behind —
The moon at the window."
http://community.humanityhealing.net/profiles/blogs/haiku-the-thief-left-it-behind-the-moon-at-the-window-ryokan