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When they had all gathered at Kimbei’s place, the people and the accents of two provinces blended together.
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![haiki rising haiki rising](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0d/0a/48/0d0a4877adbd83adee627701722528e5--peeling-sunrises.jpg)
Some brought fans and bean candy, others brought fresh oak mushrooms, and one even brought a box of the tiny rice crackers known as “hailstones ,” of which he said Kimbei’s father had been particularly fond. The invited guests were for the most part members of the haikai circle from Mino and they brought rustic gifts. Unfortunately, it was an overcast day and rain fell from mid-afternoon on. The Basho memorial was dedicated at the beginning of the fourth month of the year. “But in cursive, the grain radical looks much like the insect radical and now everyone will read it as ‘The Kiso houseflies. “Well, some people do write it that way.” “The left side is a cursive form of the grain radical and the right side is ‘tortoise.’ Right?” “I’m not altogether pleased with the character for ‘autumn ,’” Kimbei remarked. Okuraretsu / okuritsu hate wa / Kiso no aki Kichizaemon looked closely at the finished stone. So I got the idea of doing it myself in remembrance of my father,” said Kimbei as he took Kichizaemon up to the memorial. He always used to say that he intended to set up a Basho memorial during his lifetime. The two of them set out, dressed in the baggy trousers of mountain men. Saying that the stonecutter was almost finished, Kimbei invited Kichizaemon to inspect the work on the mound. When I returned to it a week later, I found the following passage about two old friends in Magome, which seemed remarkably apt in a number of ways, the most obvious being that it is set in the Kiso valley of the Nakasendō 中山道, the Nagano post-town route that was the setting for the Hailstone Autumn Haike in October 2004, and on which Tito first introduced me to Simon.Ī mound topped by a stone inscribed with a verse by Basho was set up beside the road in Shinjaya hamlet at the western edge of Magome.įew things had ever given Kichizaemon such a strong sense of his life in a mountain village. Following Simon’s example, I was trying to read more literature on paper - one of his great loves, in multiple languages. By chance, on the day I heard of his passing I had started reading Before the Dawn, a translation of Shimazaki Tōson’s (島崎藤村) 1929 novel Yoake-mae『夜明け前』. As Tito has posted, our friend Simon Piggott passed away on 8th June.