In The Spring of my Life, Issa anthologizes two poems by somebody named Hakuhi.
The cherry blossoms
Are truly cherry blossoms
Only while we wait
Passing high above
our village, migrating birds cry,
“Nobody needs you!”
These are incredible!
I searched JSTOR, Google, Wikipedia, Amazon… These two poems, in this translation (by Sam Hamill, exquisite) of Issa, seem to be the only place Hakuhi exists in the anglophone world.
I don’t know if I’m mad about that, or if it makes the poems more poetic.
Maybe when I’m 80, some chance encounter will bring a third Hakuhi haiku to my attention, and after a lifetime of anticipation the poem will be so sublime I’ll turn into a mist and float away.
Either way, if you know how to research these things better than I do, I’d appreciate some tips. Who was Hakuhi?