Haibun

Haibun is a Japanese literary form consisting of prose interspaced with haiku. It is the form that Basho used for his famous collection of haiku about his trip around northern Japan. In English, haibun is much less strict in form. In its loosest form, it is simply alternating sections of long connected prose and shorter poetic language which expounds or expands on the same subject as the prose. Many haibun writers use short fractured sentences and highly emotional language in the longer prose sections. However, others write these in a more a traditional style. Also the short section can be any sort of poetic form, including simple short phrases.

David, my Australian poet friend, suggested that I use this form during the Henro Pilgrimage. He thought the lack of rules and the resulting flexibility might make it very adaptable to whatever I find as I travel through both physical and mental space. Additionally, it is very suitable as part of a threesome (prose, poetry, and drawing), each expressing a different aspect of the subject. The following is a first attempt using a fib and based on looking out of the teachers' room at Miyagi Gakuen University this morning and seeing a fire in the foothills 10 kilometers away. The column of smoke is visible in the center of the picture.


The steel gray sky, with a hint of snow, merges with the winter-bared mountains, causing burning emotions as cold as the air. A glaze of emptiness - both Buddhist and emotional - settles over the world. A shaft of smoke rising out of the purple foothills connects the fire on the ground with the unseen, but blazing, sun in the sky. The pure white smoke a symbol of the fire's purification - the ultimate interconnectedness and emptiness of all.

fire
in
the hills,
sky above:
white smoke linking them;
each as empty as the others