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March 20 - April 4

In this reflective episode, Alexis and Kit joyfully welcome brighter days, remember springs past amid wildflower meadows and cherry blossoms, and look forward to the shining future. Hiroaki Sato leaves “Hiro’s Corner” to join our co-hosts for an interview about haiku.

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

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Spring Equinox Companion Playlist

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Poems Featured in this Podcast

“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes.

“And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the spring came and crowned everything it possibly could into that one place.”

– Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

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"March bustles in on windy feet
And sweeps my doorstep and my street.
She washes and cleans with pounding rains,
Scrubbing the earth of winter stains.
She shakes the grime from carpet green
Till naught but fresh new blades are seen.
Then, house in order, all neat as a pin,
She ushers gentle springtime in."
— Susan Reiner, Spring Cleaning

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From a court lady
I get some Botamochi -
spring equinox 
– Buson

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Rice cake with bean paste
for the crossroads Buddha...
spring breeze
– Issa

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Sparkling, the blue boat in the shining wind
– Junko Tamaki

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In the shining wind, white flowers bloom in the handkerchief

– Sachiko Hagiya

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Lively talking  
About local lore and legend
Shining wind
– Atsuko Oyanagi

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Do I hear
the sound of spring
dawn rain?
– Kazuhiko Endo

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Pulled
From my dream,
the spring dawn.
– Kazuo Hosoka

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The thrush sings
In spring dawn
A star remains
– Akio Nagata

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Spring peace--
a mountain monk peeks
through the hedge
– Kobayashi Issa

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Spring peace–
After rain, a gang war
Garden sparrows.
– Kobayashi Issa

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I do not grieve that the willow catkins have flown away
But that, in the Western Garden,
The fallen red cannot be gathered.
When dawn comes and the rain is over,
Where are the traces they have left?
A pond full of brock duckweeds!
Of all the clors of springtime,
Two thirds have gone with the fust
And one-third with the flowing water!
When you look closely,
These are not willow catkins,
But, drop after drop, parted lovers’ tears!
— Su Shih

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Up to your crown, O willow, dressed in the green of jades,
Myriads of twigs so verdant, droop like your silken braids.
Who knows who the tailor is, who’s cut your leaves so fine? It’s
The vernal winds past February, sharp as the scissors’ blades.
— He Zhizhang

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“No, you don't understand, naturally' said the second swallow. 'First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us...'I tried stopping on one year,' said the third swallow. 'I had grown so fond of the place that when the time came I hung back and let the others go on without me. For a few weeks it was all well enough, but afterwards, O the weary length of the nights! The shivering, sunless days! The air so clammy and chill, and not an insect in an acre of it! No, it was no good; my courage broke down, and one cold, stormy night I took wing, flying well inland on account of the strong easterly gales. It was snowing hard as I beat through the passes of the great mountains, and I had a stiff fight to win through; but never shall I forget the blissful feeling of the hot sun again on my back as I sped down to the lakes that lay so blue and placid below me, and the taste of my first fat insect. The past was like a bad dream; the future was all happy holiday.”

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

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The first sparrow of spring!
The year beginning with younger hope than ever!
The faint silvery warblings
heard over the partially bare and moist fields from
the bluebird, the song sparrow, and the red-wing,
as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell!

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“Just listen to them birds – th’ world seems full of ‘em – all whistlin’ an’ pipin’,” he said.  “Look at ‘em dartin’ about, an’ hearken at ‘em callin’ to each other.  Come springtime seems like as if all th’ world’s callin’.  The leaves is uncurlin’ so you can see ‘em – an’, my word, th’ nice smells there is about!”

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Like warbling pure haiku
mountain
cuckoo
— Issa

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"When April scatters charms of primrose gold
Among the copper leaves in thickets old,
And singing skylarks from the meadows rise,
To twinkle like black stars in sunny skies;

When I can hear the small woodpecker ring
Time on a tree for all the birds that sing;
And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and long --
The simple bird that thinks two notes a song."
— William Henry Davies, April's Charms

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The canola flowers,
And the tide goes back
The small stream.
– Kawahigashi Hekigoto

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The impact of canola flowers
everywhere obscures the Rivers of Yodo and Katsura
— Gonsui

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Bitter green, sweet gold
With this sip, I remember
Riverside flowers
– Alexis</