草の花 - Kusa no Hana

Back when I first conceived my Dandelion quilt, I mentioned before that I have long loved this haiku by Teiji:

名を聞いて
また見直すや
草の花

na wo kiite
mata minaosu ya
kusa no hana

When I first read it, the translation given was "Hearing its name / I look at it anew / this flowering weed".  However, some translations give us "wayside flower" instead, and the literal translation of 草の花 is "grass flower" because 草 is "grass".

Flower-head of grass, Ranmore; On the steep south-facing slope of the Denbies hillside. (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Stefan Czapski and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

This presents a matter of interpretation: in English, "grass" connotes something unremarkable and ephemeral, while "weed" connotes something hardy and unwelcome.  The poem changes pretty dramatically depending on whether the poet pauses to reconsider humble grass or a noxious weed!  I lean toward the "grass" reading, though.  I like to think that the existence of a name makes the passer-by stop to observe something he'd never considered noteworthy before. 

I plan to put this poem on my Dandelion quilt somewhere... but in keeping with the spirit of the poem, not somewhere obvious.  Maybe the back?  But first I must get a version of it that doesn't look typewritten. 

PRETTYING UP THE TEXT

I copy the Japanese text and look online for some kind of copy-paste text-to-calligraphy website.  I find Akuziti for Chinese writing.  (See the picture below.) 

When I paste my Japanese haiku into the textbox under the colored squares, I get a fun selection of script styles, but two of the characters drop out, unwilling to play nice with the Chinese program (see the new version above).  No worries -- I'll pick a pretty but generic brush-style and then hunt for the missing characters elsewhere.  I select style #61 Round and Sharp.  Then I figure out which characters are missing (聞 and 見), and go back to the wide internet. 

The next site I find is a Japanese kanji-look-up site, where I can paste the kanji one at a time into the search box, and then see the same character written in various script and seal styles.  I screenshot the ones that best match Round and Sharp, and press my MS Paint skills into service to rearrange these characters into a pleasing format. 

My favorite part about brush-style typefaces is the little flicks that in Western typography are called serifs.  Western typography is based on lithography and stonecarving, and serifs are intentional features to help the eye glide sideways from one letter to another, and to prevent the skinny tips of carved letters from fading out on monuments seen from a distance.  But in a brush-based script, the little tics are more of a satisfying hand-movement: the writer has been pushing the brush down to paint the stroke, and lifts and flicks to end it.  I like that my hand knows what the movement is when my eye sees the form.  (My sister's a calligrapher, I'll bet she understands!)

Of course, this kluge-job is not calligraphy, but it suffices for my purpose: it is legible and looks handwritten, and I can embroider it on the back of my dandelion quilt! 

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But first I must finish the quilt!  I want to get it into the Northwest Quilters Guild show, but so far my procrastination is beating me. 

(I will submit Acid Trip to the show, and maybe finish something else as well; I'd rather do Dandelion right than in a hurry.)