Words and photos by Barbara Strang

Sometimes when you are overseas you have a plan. Other times you just chance on things: this is one of the chief delights of travel.

On September 1, 2019, my son and I arrived in Tokyo at the end of a Northern Hemisphere trip. We have already spent a few days in Kyoto, the historic capital, and I don’t want to go to Tokyo – it is one of the huge cities of the world with a population of about 14 million. I imagine noise, pollution and crowds, also it’s the hot and steamy monsoon season. However, as the plane home leaves from there I consent to two nights. Our hotel is small and traditional, on the banks of the Sudima River. It is reassuring. To fill in the first full day my son finds some sights to visit near our hotel, in a quiet area of town. One is the Kiyosumi traditional Japanese garden, constructed in the 19th century. In a shady corner where mosquitoes lurk, we find a memorial to Basho.

We realise that, somehow, we are in the area of Fukagawa, where Basho lived at the height of his career. After nine years in Edo, as Tokyo was known then, he wanted a simple life closer to nature. Fukagawa was a quiet marshy area, inhabited mainly by fishermen, with few bridges into town. His followers built him a rustic hut shaded by a basho, a banana tree, which became his new pen name. Basho’s move ultimately led a change in Japanese poetry from a courtly pastime, to an art with universal relevance.

My son and I want to discover more. We decide to spend our last morning on the trail of Basho, before we catch the big bird back home.

Neither of us speak or read Japanese. However, Kieran has been to Japan several times. He works out an itinerary with the help of Google. Luckily he is very good at finding his way in strange cities. I am like a blind woman, confused by the size of the place, the numerous streets, buildings, metro lines and rivers. Tokyo is situated on a delta with a maze of waterways, and underground there is another maze of metro lines.

After a Japanese breakfast at our hotel (to summarise, a bento box containing healthy treats wrapped in seaweed) we catch a metro or two and start off at the place that was once a house belonging to one of Basho’s disciples. This is where Basho left on the famous journey immortalised in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Now there’s a small structure representing the house, with a bronze statue of Basho in his travelling outfit. The bench his statue is sitting on has a space for the weary tourist/pilgrim. I am quite delighted at how it engages one to sit alongside the famous man.

taking a breather
the long journey
before us this day

Barbara Strang

There’s a haiku walk beside the river. It is the beginning of autumn, and the cherry trees have a sprinkle of coloured leaves. We are the only people there. Among the trees are wooden sign boards bearing classical haiku. We guess that these were a selection of classical haiku and that the characters in brackets on each board are probably the poet’s name. Kieran tries Google translate on them; it’s a guessing game and produces mainly word salad, but we find one which may have been right.

summer grasses
all that remains
of great warriors’ dreams             

Matsuo Basho

We walk on to the small Inari shrine dedicated to Basho.

The two stone frogs have a story to tell. Apparently in his lifetime Basho, who as we know wrote the famous poem “old pond”, possessed a stone frog. It went missing after his death. After a tsunami In 1917 it turned up miraculously in this very spot. During the last war it was lost again, and a replica was created for the shrine, perhaps the frog on the right of this photo. Amazingly the original battered relic turned up later in someone’s safe, and is now in the nearby Basho Museum. The grey one on the left is a copy of the original.

close to the river
two frogs on dry pebbles
stuck in time

Barbara Strang

We ring the bell and spend a few moments of reflection here. Beside the shrine is a curved staircase enticing one to climb to the Memorial Outlook garden, above the confluence of the Sudima and Kiyosubashi rivers.

On the left-hand side is a series of poles depicting the river as it used to be.

To compare, this is what the streets surrounding here look like today. No doubt Basho would leave smartly.

At the top of the outlook path we are the only ones there. Here we find information in Japanese on Basho’s life with illustrations copied from old texts, and another bronze statue of him. He is on a pedestal, but looks thoughtful, like a real person.

Next on our path there is the small Basho Memorial Museum. No one knows where Basho’s hut, Basho-an, was situated, but it’s believed that, if not exactly here, it was very close by. Notice the banana trees in the narrow space outside the entrance.

Inside there are only a handful of other visitors, all Japanese. Fortunately, they have information in English. There is an exhibition upstairs which contains portraits and statuettes of Basho, and other visual material, including this contemporary sketch of Basho inside Basho-an (there is more than one of these drawings).

The little wooden carving shown below was done during his lifetime by a disciple and is probably a good likeness. He is dressed in his travelling outfit.

Also here, we find the original battered stone frog, residing in state.

One of the delights of Tokyo is the pocket gardens in tiny spaces, providing a respite of green among the grey buildings. Outside the museum there is a such a one.

pause for reflection —
the various patterns
of sunshine and leaves

Barbara Strang

There are more haiku here, but alas, we can’t read these either.

The past is a foreign country too, but some things endure like the old frog; ideas that revolutionise mankind. Have we found Basho in just one morning? We certainly have a good idea of what he looked like, and a feeling for the area in his day. Also, we have become aware of Japanese reverence around him and his life. Pardon me for the errors I have probably made in this piece. We stumbled around partly bewildered and partly getting it. Paradoxically though, I gained the feeling that there is still space for me take a walk, and to put pen to paper.

One last shrine, the miniature Basho-an round the back of the museum. I am once again, unintentionally, in the picture.

one morning in Tokyo
my image beside
a fellow poet’s

Barbara Strang