House on Fire, Impermanence in Haiku
Notes from Life as a Journey service at UU Oakland on September 13, 2026
I came to Oakland to study poetry at Mills College. My classmate was Rev. Mary Ganz, a wonderful poet and long-time member of this congregation. After I graduated, I got a scholarship to study in Kanazawa, Japan and then in Tokyo where I joined a haiku circle.
Our most celebrated haiku poet, Matsuo Basho lived in Edo, present day Tokyo, three hundred years ago. He lived in central Tokyo but after awhile decided to move to a small cabin the on Sumida River to get out of the busyness of the city. This detail of his life amazes me. He did not have a TV, a phone or email. He did not have electricity. But still, he felt the need to get away, to shape his surroundings so there would be less hustle. less distraction. At his new place, students brought him a banana tree and planted it in front of his cabin. He took his pen name, Basho, from the Banana plant because of the way the leaves rustle in the wind. It’s a sign of fall, that dry, forlorn rustling.
In the winter of 1682, a fire burned through Tokyo. He survived by submerging in the river shielded from the heat with a sedge mat. He could feel the heat of the fire on the mat. At that moment, he realized the urgency and frailty of life. He understood the teaching, to live like a house on fire. as we walk through the house as it is burning around us. In our daily lives we get nestled into our routines, attached to our homes, to our material things. We have times when we can forget the constant change of life. Basho saw travel as a way to height a sense of impermanence and to divest from material attachments. He wasn’t thinking of a vacation, he was setting out on a rugged and threadbare journey. Soon after surviving the fires, Basho set off with his student Sora and toward remote parts of Northern Japan.
This opening words of his travel journal: (trans. Helen Craig McCullough)
The sun and the moon are eternal voyagers; the years that come and go are travelers too. For those whose lives float away on boats, for those who greet old age with hands clasping the lead ropes of horses, travel is life, travel is home. And many are those of old who have perished as they journeyed. I myself fell prey to wanderlust some years ago, desiring nothing better than to be a vagrant cloud scudding before the wind.
The same passage translated by David Barnhill reads:
Months and days are the wayfarers of a hundred generations, the years too, going and coming, are wanderers. For those who drift life away on a boat, for those who meet age leading a horse by the mouth, each day is a journey, the journey itself home. (Among ancients, too, many died on the journey. And so I too–for how many years–drawn by a cloud wisp wind, have been unable to stop thoughts of rambling.)
Buson’s depiction of Basho and Sora on their journey.
***
Basho’s most famous haiku goes:
this old pond, a frog jumps in, sound of water
What do you see in your mind when you hear this poem? What’s the image that it evokes?
this old pond, a frog jumps in, sound of water
(talk to the person beside you)
We think of haiku as a poem five-seven-five syllable lines about nature. That’s a pretty good start. Another way to think of haiku is as two images that clash together to evoke a third. One image is of something enduring or longstanding, say, an old pond, a mountain, the ocean. The other image is of momentary change, a frog jumps, a fly lands, a friend waves goodbye.
The old pond —
A frog leaps in,
And a splash.
Translated by Makoto Ueda
The old pond
A frog jumped in,
Kerplunk!
Translated by Allen Ginsberg
Basho traveled with his friend and student, Sora. This route was a kind of pilgrimage, and they wore monks robes. On this kind of journey, Monks wear specific clothing and write, by two we go on their robes or on their straw hats. This means they were not walking alone but they were walking with the teachings of Buddhism or with the dharma. Sora got weary of the trip and left for home while Basho continued without him. After Sora left, Basho wrote this haiku:
I let the words, by two we go, wash off my hat in the rain
The frog pond haiku in Basho’s handwriting
***
Haiku is a very concise form – just 17 syllables. In poetry we call this a ‘constraint’ something that limits or shapes the possibilities of a poem. Constraints are also thought of as a catalyst to surprises, the unexpected and as a mechanism to bring out deeper meanings in a poem or to connect with the unconscious. I have found that in life too, my vision to living vividly has run up again some constraints.
When daughter was in first grade, she wanted to ride her bike to school two blocks away but she didn’t know how to ride. Each morning, I would hold the seat and try to prop up the bike under her as we went down the sidewalk. After two weeks, she really had the hang of it and could ride while I walked beside her. I envisioned us riding along paved trails at Alameda State beach or through the Aquatic Park.
Then, she turned to me and said, I want to go in the bike lane. the bike lane in the street with the cars. I was a balloon deflating. I didn’t want to say no. I didn’t want her riding in the street. So often our daydreams are lived in compromise. I am the reins, the force reining her in.
It’s not just biking. I’m the one making sure we brush our teeth and do homework, have a steady, calm life. These are constraints, yes, but her growing and changing so quickly also the heightens my awareness of impermanence. Basho has his months on the road in Japan, and I’ve got an elementary school in the East Bay. Both in our own way trying to attend to these fleeting moments as brightly as vividly as possible. The sun and moon are travels, seafarers, those riding horses as travelers, those riding bikes are travelers, those coming weekly to this sanctuary are travelers too.
***
Issa wrote a poem cheering on a snail
little snail, inch by inch– climbing Mount Fuji
We don’t know if the snail is climbing a huge mountain or if the snail is climbing a tiny mound of sand only thinking that it is Mount Fuji.
little snail, inch by inch– climbing Mount Fuji