esejieng

I take at face value what the poet, Jerry Kilbride, cites in this poem. We have fog – a reality. We have a mime – another given. And we have the word upon which the entire poem depends, the ambiguous pivot-word (kakekotoba) “lifting.” Because of the word order in this poem and its grammatical rightness, “lifting” applies equally to “mime” and “fog.” This is what Basho called yojo – surplus meaning. This is an example of how, with the least, a fine poet can squeeze out far more significance than a first reading would disclose. This is what makes the poem continue to expand in the mind, to be open-ended as is the good haiku, rather than remain a complete statement of impact and humor that is more characteristic of the senryu.

Taken image by image as written we have:

1. mime: Usually their faces masked over with whiteness – one reality covered by another.

2. lifting: Something rising or something being elevated. Putting the two lines together: the mime performs in silence the act of lifting. He/she must create an illusion of strain, or stress to convey the notion of weight implicit to the act of lifting. For the mime whose stock in trade is to walk against the wind or walk in water, on sand, or a tightrope where none there is – this is possible.

3. fog: A visual reality whose very nature and unique peculiarity is its weightlessness, its intangibility: it cannot be grasped.

Now the poem begins. It can be read several ways, all of which have a validity and build toward increasing complexity.

A. The mime has taken on a Sisyphean task – that of lifting (or trying to) something weightless and intangible but visible and real – fog. This is the humor, the charm, the ridiculous naiveté of the art of pantomime. We believe, we see the mime's antics. Is he trying to encompass this floating grey veil with his arms akimbo? Is he aware he is failing as the fog lowers and does he then lie down to push at it now with hands and feet? The show goes on. . . Yet gradually there emerges along with the laughter the underlying realization of the futility of his efforts. Hence enters the tragic-comic aspect of the art of pantomime. No matter how great his efforts, the mime will be engulfed in the veil of grayness – one reality covered by another. He will be effaced. One cannot ignore the reverberations relating to Man's struggle to prevail against all odds, against the inevitable. The poem takes a leap to universality and significance far beyond the delightful initial humor of the piece. The haiku, grounded in reality, depicting a moment just as it is (sono mama), has just this sort of growth potential which sets it apart from senryu. On a purely superficial level, this poem could be just funny and could conceivably be viewed as senryu. But to do so avoids consideration of its other perfectly valid readings. To continue:

B. Let us assume now that instead of the mime lifting fog, we have a mime who is performing (line 1). We take the pivot-word “lifting” which we have used as a verb and we set up a new scenario. We make it an adjective and apply it to the fog: “lifting fog.”

A foggy day, yet the show out on the city street must go on. The mime captures the attention of the passers-by. The fog in which the action began has moved during the entertainment and a pleasant day emerges. Was it only the change in the weather – or was it perhaps the total involvement with the mime that altered conditions? Here one could also play with the conceit that the fine entertainer does have the phenomenal ability to change the weather of the soul from foul to fine. But in the final analysis, a haiku must first be interpreted at face value. On its primary level, this poem depicts fog and a mime – and a wonderfully ambiguous mysterious “lifting” done, the reader is surprised to find, by both!

NOTES

1Third Prize Winner in the 1988 Harold G. Henderson Memorial Award Contest of the Haiku Society of America. Judges: Alan Pizzarelli and Anita Virgil.

Previously published in Modern Haiku, Summer 1989, vol. XX, No. 2.

Reprinted by permission of the author.