Three haiku today by Buson, one of the great Japanese poets. The cuckoo is both a symbol of the bursting forth of summer and melancholy—the cuckoo’s song said to be the sound of spirits singing to their living friends and family. A fitting word for today when it feels like Summer has ended and Fall has fallen upon us. The Japanese word used in these poems is hototogisu, referring to the Little Cuckoo, known for its songs (and, conveniently for haiku writers, its five syllables).

WORK

Cry of the little cuckoo
the famous sword
flashes out of its sheath

The cry of the little cuckoo
out of the clouds
snatches the coffin

Call now little cuckoo
to the nightingale in the painting
there is light in the eastern sky

—Yosa Buson (trans. by W. S. Merwin and Takako Lento)
—from Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson

WORD(S)

gloaming /GLOW-ming/. noun. Twilight (morning or evening); the dusky light of those times. See also: crepuscule, evenfall.

“Soon as the gloaming spreads her waving shade.” (Lord Byron)

“…I climbed down, walked to the end of the shallow scoop of bay and set off through the grass by the side of the burn, heading back to Gallanach through the calm summer gloaming.” (Iain Banks)

“And feels the worst of all that he’d lumbered out of the bedroom in just jeans and belt out to the gloaming living room where Fackelmann was hunched moist and smeary-mouthed in the corner next to a mountain of 10 mg. Dilaudids…” (David Foster Wallace)

“Roamin’ in the gloamin’ on the bonnie banks o’ Clyde
Roamin’ in the gloamin’ wae my lassie by my side.
When the sun has gone to rest,
That’s the time we love the best.
O, it’s lovely roamin’ in the gloamin!” (lyrics by Sir Harry Lauder)

WEB

1. “You may not know what Abracadabra means, but you very well feel its magical force, and its effect only gains from the obscurity of the incantation.” — Barry Mazur on “The Authority of the Incomprehensible”. It delves a bit into math for a bit, but you don’t need to follow the numbers to get the point. Or do you?

2. Some spreads from Adriaen Coenen’s Visboek (Fish Book, 1580), a mammoth volume of all things fish and fish-related. I could share links from The Public Domain Review all day long.

3. Old chapbooks online: of all kinds, of the Gothic variety, from the Victorians & Romantics and for (originally) 19th Century children.

4. Some recent research suggests that doodling might help you stay focused, understand new concepts more efficiently and improve your retention. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to use cool pens and pencils.

5. Today in 1966, Charles Joseph Whitman opened fire from the clock tower on the University of Austin campus, killing 16. John Berryman’s “Dream Song 135” invokes these events.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader A. notes: “Just for irony I think RIPOSTES makes for a good WORD(S) Rip + Posts?” — As long as it isn’t R.I.P.

• Reader T. comments: “Today’s word reminds me of one of my favorite (nearly) useless words: anagnorisis, in particular the example thereof from the Odyssey where Odysseus is recognized by his nurse because of his old boar hunting scar.” — I heart anagnorisis (the word and the action). Pronounced /a-neg-NO-rice-iss/ — a recognition leading to dénouement (itself a great word).

• For Reader S., my description of my non-method for choosing words to feature triggered memories of “…a few words that, for various reasons, strike me in similar ways. For some reason, bucolic came to mind. It may be the word that sounds least like what it describes. When I first heard it, I was reminded of bulimia and colic.” — Anyone have contenders for a word that sounds less like its meaning?

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