Life of Issa
by James Roderick Burns

1

HAIKU POETS, THOUGHT Master Issa, were rather peculiar animals: poised, ink-brush on

hand, beside lake and chestnut tree, moon-viewing platform, dusty summer road. Blossom-

brief, delicate as wind-blown reeds – ever seeking a life of resonant loneliness.

And yet!

Here squats the priest in a pristine winter field; here, houseflies make love when the poet

leaves the room!

2

Motherless at three, step-mothered at seven, catapulted by fifteen from mountain village to

capital. But from this barrel of ashes he drew feathers, a beak, shaky wings. At twenty, a

workshop apprentice, he leapt the rungs far past his master, burst into sun with glittering

sides.

3

Helping monks with their verses was pleasant enough, but beyond the door was a pepper-tree,

and beyond the pepper-tree, the world. Surely cuckoo and craggy shore were calling!

He packed a satchel with two paper-robes, a fine lice-comb, then walked into the first of

seven travelling summers.

4

"Rice, master?"

"My horse will recross the plain."

"The shrine? This way."

All along, lawyers fought over his father’s house.

No matter.

The peony, mild-pink, emerged from its green corona. Hot-spring monkeys knocked off caps

of snow.

​

5
Barely had he returned when the village pricked his skin. Only a poem could relieve such
irritation.
    In my home
    even the fleas aren’t afraid
    to bite a big man

​

6

Split-houses still had room for growth: a wife, daughter, bursting like seed-pods with life.

Second fruit, third – each sweeter, briefer, than the last. At five decades’ close he married

again, lost again; married over. At six, burned through timbers, paper walls, like a breeze-

lofted ember.

In the end, only thoughts: anthology strokes, charcoal-sketchbooks, twenty thousand

dragonflies lifting out of sight.

7

At last – light.

    In a flash

    the lake is filled

    with fireworks!