whatever I pick up

by Fukuda Chiyo-ni

English version by Gabriel Rosenstock
Original Language Japanese

whatever I pick up
is alive --
ebbing tide

-- from Haiku Enlightenment: New Expanded Edition, by Gabriel Rosenstock

<<Previous Poem | More Poems by Fukuda Chiyo-ni | Next Poem >>


/ Image by JanieGirl80 /


View All Poems by Fukuda Chiyo-ni

Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

When I read this haiku, it says a lot to me.

whatever I pick up
is alive --

Those first two lines speak of life, discovery, surprise, delight, and the rich variety of the world.

As a young child growing up in Oregon, I loved visits to the coast. Much of the Oregon coast is rocky, cold, moody -- perfect for tide pools. I still remember being little more than a toddler and walking among the wet rocks to discover hidden tide pools, little pockets of water filled with the most colorful, strange life forms: anemones, star fish, mussels, tiny fish darting about, and the occasional hermit crab scuttling for cover. Each little tide pool was a wonderland of life!

But the poet's last line--

ebbing tide

--it hints at death.

She's right, of course. You have to wait until the ebbing tide to reveal all that magical life. But the ebbing tide itself is a pulling away. It can feel like a personal diminishment or loss, one of nature's reminders of death.

So perhaps the poem is suggesting to us that it is only when we recognize the reality of death that the richness of life is fully revealed to us. It is a melancholy insight, but death is simply there, to be addressed by each soul. And death is, in some ways, the ultimate teacher that challenges each and every one of us to never take any moment of our lives for granted.

We tend to imagine that death is the loss of awareness and the loss of self, but not so. Whatever we may believe about an afterlife, death itself, when we accept its unavoidable presence, actually serves to awaken awareness and fan the fires of life within us. Death reminds us that life is not measured in quantity of years but in the fulness of our moments. The truth of death gives us permission to pause and notice that whatever we pick up is alive.



Recommended Books: Fukuda Chiyo-ni

This Dance of Bliss: Ecstatic Poetry from Around the World Haiku Enlightenment: New Expanded Edition Chiyo-ni: Woman Hiaku Master



whatever I pick up