SLOW DOWN
The high-speed information
throughput of the web medium becomes painfully apparent to me as I read over the haiku on this page and in my own writeup. Typed onto the white paper of my book, I take a full minute to read each one--and the tiny scene blooms in my mind's eye, swelling to capture the entire
cosmos as a drop of water on a leaf reflects the image of the entire forest. But burned into the
phosphors of my
CRT, the
haiku node on
E2 whizzes by and delivers as much information as a freeway billboard. I
implore you: on this page, at least, slow down and dive into these images as you would into a page of
Where's Waldo?--you will discover they are at least as finely detailed. (This paragraph is as much advice to myself as it is to readers of this page.)
Black! crow standing
in his eye all eternity
Long shadows draw
Wild winds abate
In morning's first light
A broken teahouse
Bursting open
The rose dawn fills
My empty universe
No barrier now
Lofty mountain to one
Riding the wind.
- Sho Ka
Midnight. No waves,
no wind, the empty boat
is flooded with moonlight.
- Dogen (1200-1253)
Though I'm in Kyoto,
when the cuckoo sings
I long for Kyoto.
How admirable,
he who thinks not, "Life is fleeting,"
when he sees the lightning!
- Basho (1644-1694)
A fallen flower
returning to the branch?
It was a butterfly.
- Moritake
This dewdrop world--
it may be a dewdrop,
and yet--and yet--
- Issa (1763-1827), upon the death of his child
First, there is a mountain.
Then there is no mountain.
And again.
O snail o snail,
climb Mount Fuji.
But slowly, slowly.
Engine is growling,
paused at a stop sign--
going home.