As for this book, by way of stirring up interest as self-published writers are also their own PR departments, maybe a few words on origins and a bit of a sampler might be a good idea. I've spent my whole adult life engaged with one or another worldview emanating from East or South-East Asia, and have long been a reader not just of the philosophic but also of the mythic and poetic literatures of the region. At the time these poems were composed, I was immersed in a long exploration of the haiku genre, both in its best classical exemplars and in the thought worlds that inform much of their work—particularly Ch'an/Zen Buddhism, and the contribution to that worldview by the classical Taoist thinker and all-around intellectual mischief maker Chuang-Tzu. Probably half of the poems in this collection originated as rough drafts sketched in the margins of Basho, Buson, Issa, and others, as well as in the works of earlier Chinese poets Li Po and Tu Fu, whose influence can't be exaggerated.
In terms of structure, the first half of the book (more or less) consists of a relatively traditional seasonal haiku cycle, of course with occasional bursts of playfulness because... well... Have we met? And honestly, this is, or can be, a genuinely playful form. The second half contains several shorter but thematically unified sequences, and of course a number of stand-alone pieces as well. Over the next little while, I'll be sharing random bits. For today's sample, I think I'll post the prologue: three pieces revolving around an encounter with a black bear many years ago and that is narrated more fully in my first book: Screefing: A Tree Planter's Reflection. I didn't know at the time that this encounter would turn out to be one of the defining moments in my understanding of myself and my place in the Cosmos, but such has it ended up being. The episode is now distant and thus looks different here than in Screefing, the bear and its offspring long deceased, and did I not have the account I jotted down in my tent moments after the fact, the whole thing would probably have expanded out of all reasonable proportion. But in this and everything else in these pages (can we still call them pages?), I've tried to address the subject matter as honestly as I could.
Prologue: Black Bear Haiku
i
bear's breath on skin
silhouette
in cold moonlight
at last no questions
ii
bear's breath on forehead
wide eyes hungry for the dark:
singularity
iii
still night bear's breath warm
nose snuffle pressed to forehead
third eye open
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