the indian haibun backwaters kovalam beach hampi tourist trek lunghi varanasi peripatetic paradise

speechless before these budding green spring leaves in blazing sunlight.

lonely silence a single cicada's cry sinking into stone

when i left japan heading for india, my dear friend mark gave me a small beautiful book that i have treasured ever since. it is a little shambala centaur edition of basho's narrow road to the interior, radiantly translated by sam hamill. the book is a kind of travel diary written in a combination of prose and haiku called haibun. it has a quiet perfection like nothing else i've ever read.

here are the first lines, and a few of the poems, with one of the book's illustrations by stephen addiss:

The moon and the sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

i was inspired to write some haiku on the journey through india with my then-new friend tony. photographs and haiku became the way we processed the madness of india, every occasion demanding a new poem, every hot and dusty train journey made bearable by laughing over the stupidest new line, or nodding in sage agreement when one of us hit the nail on the head.

some of them are mine, some tony's, some a combined effort, but most of them i really can't remember who wrote. it's kind of like that lovely weird photo one of us took of women inside an elloran cave, their saris in motion as they walk toward the light of the cave entrance. probably tony took it, and maybe i did, but what matters more is the way that counting syllables on our fingers as we bounced over rutted roads in india made us good friends.

read the indian travel haibun >