ringo mogi sora-ni sazanami tatase-keri

       plucking an apple

       ripples spread out

       through the sky

       --

       Kiyoko Murakami (1943-). From "Gappon Haiku Saijiki" (Combined Kigo Dictionary), Fourth Edition, Kadokawa, 2008.

       Although in haiku one often sees poems that blur the line between water and sky (most often through a reflected moon), the present haiku combines an apple that is no longer there, as it has been plucked from its branch, with ripples that cannot possibly have been actually formed in the blue sky. The rebound from the branch as the apple leaves it can be imagined to have formed those ripples, which were perceived though they don't exist in the physical world on the plane of existence that we presently occupy. Because the season word (kigo) is "apple" rather than a pear, plum, persimmon, pomegranate or peach, we are drawn to imagine the forbidden fruit being picked in the Garden of Eden and the far-reaching consequences (ripples) that act had.

       Selected, translated and commented on by Dhugal J. Lindsay

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