Bashō Variations
by
Steve McCaffery The following three poems are from The Bashō Variations, Toronto, Ontario: BookThug, 2007. “A Lewis Carroll Bashō” is “for Jean-Jacques Lecercle” and is from page 52. “Hamlet’s Bashō” is from pages 58–59. And “Elegy Written by a Country Duck Pond” is from page 61. A Lewis Carroll BashōAlice through the Looking-Pondwhere no word means the same thing twice Hamlet’s BashōTojump or not to jump, that is the ques tion; wheth er ’tis no bler that a frog should suf fer the waves and ripples of out rage ous wa ter or take its legs in to a pond of troub le and by de scend ing wet them. To swim, per chance to drown, aye there’s the rub. Elegy Written by a Country Duck PondThe curfewtolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea; a bullfrog by its pond decides to stay, but jumps into it unexpectedly. |