A Chopped Herb Helps

                                                                                       jhhymas

At the Asilomar Retreat featuring Robert Hass in 1992, 

Lequita Vance-Watkins tries to explain something to Jerry Kilbride;

he's not so sure.

Lequita is the former Executive Director of the San Jose Center for Poetry & Literature 

and is the author of 

White Flash/Black Rain: Women of Japan Relive the Bomb, Milkweed Editions, 1995.

Jerry Kilbride was a beloved haiku stalwart in the Bay Area for many years. 

Here is a link to his memorial broadcast on NPR.

yomo ni utsu / nazuna ni shidoro/ modoro kana

Everyone says

a chopped herb helps

if you are confused

   

Basho

translated by Robert Aitken

The River of Heaven; haiku of Basho, Buson, Issa

and Shiki, Counterpoint, 2011, page 64.