The Journey Begins

Haibun (pronounced hi-BOON) is an old Japanese poetic form that incorporates both haiku (the 5-7-5 thing we all know and love) and prose that carries itself well, with a poetic sensibility. The content is traditionally travel-based. I wanted to work out on this form for a while and see what it can do, and since I am perpetually traveling with the dogs on the trail around the North Orchard where we live, this seemed a good source of ideas. Basho, the great Japanese poet whose hundreds of haiku are still celebrated, wrote the original haibun masterpiece, sometimes translated Journey Into the Interior, or Journey Into the Far North. I think he would appreciate how you can walk the same trail three times a day for a year, get nowhere, and have seen plenty. Enamored as I have always been with almanacs and Saint-Of-The-Day books, I try to write a new haibun each week. I am posting the first several today, to catch up, but from now on I hope the pace will be sedate.