A Drunken Poet
Once a great poet lived in Japan.
He was a drunker, a great drunker. Though his Japanese-style poems were highly praised in literary circles in Japan, he was a helpless drinker.
But his poems were so sophisticated that no readers realized that he was addicted to alcohol. To earn money he traveled local regions where he visited persons with a literary bent. In their homes, he wrote his poems on colored paper and so on to enjoy hospitality and receive lecture fees. But the great poet didn't like this road show. Money he earned was soon used for drinking.
But he sometimes looked like a homeless person. In one inn, he was assigned to the worst room and requested lodging charges of soon after a supper. When he visited a home town of his friend, who was also a notable poet, and went on a visit of the house of the friend's father to see the friend, he was mistaken as a hobo and expelled, since his friend was unfortunately absent. But when the friend came back to the house and heard of the drunken hobo, he identified the great poet to go out and find him, in vain.
Of course, since when I was a boy, I knew the name Bokusui Wakayam, because his poems are so excellent. But it was very recently that I learnt that Bokusui was a helpless drinker.
Bokusui Wakayama (1885–1928) was a Japanese author. Wakayama was a Naturalist tanka poet who was active at the beginning of the 20th century, during the tanka revival started by Yosano Tekkan. He traveled all over Japan and Korea, which, at that time, was under Imperial Japanese control composing many tankas about the places he visited. He also loved sake. Heavy drinking eventually damaged his liver and he died relatively young.One of great verses Wakayama Bokusui wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokusui_Wakayama
Aren't the white birds so sad
As they are straying around
Without being immersed
In the blue of sky and tides?
(translated by EEE-Reporter)
Whoever is homeless, traveling around the country, with a mind of a poet reminds me of Christ Jesus, even if the hobo is mostly drunken.
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Mat 11:11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.