drizzle…
the song of the nightingale
is changing
Comment: a haiku with a classic taste which relies on hearing to create a sense of surprise in the reader’s mind. The sound of the drizzle (kosame 小雨) falling in the first line keeps reverberating in the next ku (see the ellipsis serving as a kireji 切れ字) and finally joins the song of the nightingale (uguisu 鶯, here used as a spring kigo) in line 2. A poem based on a conscious fueki ryūkō 不易流行 (‘constancy and change’) in which the changing component is explicitly given by the variation in tone of the bird’s voice (koe 声).
