… i have a thick book of haikus composed by Basho, Buson and Isa… i have been reading two to four pages worth daily as a kind of spiritual observance… i think about them, summarize them, sometimes quote particular ones that land more firmly than others in my mind…

… the one that lands most firmly this morning is about being in a winter garden, the moon thinned to thread width, the insects singing… if it’s winter, the insects wouldn’t be singing, at least not where i live, and not in Japan?… the poem is about the garden of old age, the light diminishing, insects singing the poet off into approaching blackness…