Plover (chidori)
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Plover (chidori)
***** Location: Japan, other areas
***** Season: Winter
***** Category: Animal
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Explanation
Quote from the Japan Times, Aug. 21, 2006
Japan was once replete with wetlands. One of the ancient names for the country, after all, was Ashihara no kuni ("land of reed plains") or, more descriptively, O-yashima toyo-ashihara no mizuho no kuni ("land of many large islands with abundant reed plains of sparkling flowering tufts"). Deities were naturally involved. The land creator O-kuni nushi no mikoto was also called Ashihara shiko-o no mikoto ("muddy male deity out of the reed plains").
One poetic name of the reed, for that matter, is Naniwa-grass. Naniwa is an old name of Osaka, suggesting that the whole region was once synonymous with reeds. "You couldn't tell whether it was land or sea" in most of the region, as one source puts it by way of explaining an 8th-century poem. The standard set of Chinese characters applied to Naniwa ("wave-flower 難波") and the etymology of the name "fish garden" both point to the same thing.
Something similar may be said of much of the plain that makes up Tokyo today. I think of a haiku by Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827) simply because it captures so vividly the spectacle of a large flock of shorebirds suddenly flying up:
Shiohama o
hogo ni shite tobu
chidori kana
"Crumpling the briny shore
into waste paper
plovers rise."
The Japan Times © All rights reserved
Read the full article in the WKD Archives.
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Worldwide use
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Things found on the way
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HAIKU
daruma ki ya chinpunkan o naku chidori
on Dharma's Death Day
spouting gibberish...
a plover
—Issa
[translation by David Lanoue]
http://www.poetrylives.com/SimplyHaiku/SHv3n2/haiga_Traditional/Daruma/
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nesting area ...
new piping plover eggs
more or less spotted
Haiku and Photo © by Carol Raisfeld
http://home.alc.co.jp/db/owa/ph_diary?stage=show&diary_sn_in=394
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Related words
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Please send your contributions to Gabi Greve
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posted by Gabi Greve @ 4/12/2006
4 Comments:
Gabi, I always enjoy your informative emails.
Off the East coast of Canada, on the tiny Island province of Prince Edward Island (the seat of Confederation, when/where our country was officially formed), there exists one of the few nesting sanctuaries for Plovers.
It's a cordoned off area (not even very extensive) near one of the Island's many fine beaches. Signs warn beach-goers to avoid it. Driving past it earlier this month while on vacation, I almost felt a sacredness in the air . . . here, if we let it, the Plover will continue to breed and exist. Life.
How tenuous it is.
plover sanctuary
even the air around it
smells sweet
Dina E. Cox
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basking in the sun
with Saint Jizo...
a plover sings
o-jizoo to hinata bokoshite naku chidori
御地蔵と日向ぼこして鳴千鳥
by Issa, 1813
Or: "plovers sing." Jizoo is the beloved guardian deity of children. As Gabi Greve notes, Jizoo is not a "saint" in the strictest sense, since saints are human beings.
On the other hand, Jizoo certainly is a supernatural helper of humans. It is because of this aspect of saintliness that I add "Saint" to the name in my translation: to let Western readers who might not know who Jizoo is understand at least that he is a helpful religious figure.
Tr. David Lanoue
http://cat.xula.edu/issa/
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beach plovers
raise a ruckus...
the dog runs away
ura chidori naki taterarete inu nigeru
浦千鳥鳴立られて犬逃る
by Issa, 1825
In my first translation, I had the dog chasing the birds, but Shinji Ogawa explains that the opposite is happening.
Tr. David Lanoue
http://cat.xula.edu/issa/
.
plovers on a winter night--
not an old voice
among them
sayo chidori toshiyori-goe wa nakari keri
.さよ千鳥としより声はなかりけり
by Issa, 1815
The word "winter" does not appear in Issa's original text, but this is the season for plovers and an important fact of the haiku. The young birds, full of heat and energy, sing in the cold winter night.
Tr. David Lanoue http://cat.xula.edu/issa/
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