Kisagata

by Sam and Brandon

Our station is Kisagata, Basho's thirty-second stop. Kisagata is located to the northeast of Sakata, which is very settled and plain. Kisagata is a lagoon with sandy beaches, steep hills, rocky shores and lots of rain. It has many open forests. On the day he was there, it got so foggy that even Mt. Chokai was nearly impossible to see. He traveled in this state of semi-blindness. He was special because he could enjoy the many wonders of Japan. He was interested in seeing the areas of Japan he had never seen. He was excited to see the wonderful beauties of Kisagata's landscapes. It was full of nature, not a lot of people, and there were many trees not yet cut down. We hope you will learn a little more about Basho's journey in Kisagata.  

Place is the personality of an area. Plants, soil, land ,water and Climate are connected to nature because they have nothing to do with human connections. Machinery, language, jobs, clothes, buildings, communication, poor and rich, government and transportation are connected to human because each of them have something to do with what we do, what we wear, how we speak, what we use and how we communicate, how wealthy we are, and who we have as leaders. Kisagata is Basho’s thirty-second step in his travels of Japan. It is located to the northeast of Sakata. In Kisagata, Basho saw huts, temples, and he saw the barrier-gate of Muyamuya. Those were some of the buildings that Basho saw. He used a boat and his feet for transportation. The land he was in was Kisagata. The landforms he saw, walked on, or climbed were mountains, sandy beaches, rocky shores and steep hills. The water he saw was in a lagoon, sea and drivers. One of the kinds of plants he saw were cherry blossoms. If I were Basho, I would feel special to be able to see the many wonders of Japan in that time.

Basho was a Japanese man who, because of his heritage, was born to be a samurai. He discovered he had an interest in poetry when he took lessons from a great poet. He then decided he wanted to be poet not a samurai. He studied and wrote haiku and with time and effort, became a very famous poet himself. Although Basho was very famous, he was not rich. He lived in a tiny house. He was very brave and adventurous for he traveled across many places, even though he was very ill. Basho was a positive kind of person. He was always trying to focus on the bright side of things. For example, if it was raining he could imagine how beautiful it would look like when the weather was clear .He was an observant person and wrote with much description. Basho was not happy with the quality of his poems. He was also bored with his life. He wanted to see the places that poets he admired had visited and wrote about. So, he decided to go on a long journey across Japan. On Basho' s journey to Kisagata, he learned about legends of the land such as the legend of the Empress Jingu and the Hachiman shrine that was built in Kisagata in her name. He saw the beauty of the land, mountains, flowering silk trees and of lagoon Kisagata. He learned that what he had read about Kisagata was true. If I met Basho today, I think I would like him because he was adventurous. I would love to hear all about the paces he had visited. I would like to have him help me with my writing or maybe we could try some poetry.