Haiku - music of we

“Hey mate, I was thinking of you in the morning...”

So starts my friend Sean Carter’s small note sent to me on Facebook. Isn’t that a wonderful thing to go back to those good old moments?

I was finishing my lunch when Sean came out of nowhere and dragged a chair to have a small talk. In a little while I noticed him scribble down on a piece of paper. Sean was not a great friend of mine, but he chose my company for a while. And when I think of it now, it seems a beautiful manipulation of our fates. Yes, it’s a beautiful manipulation.

These events took place in the middle of sea, while we were on a cruise ship participating at a youth program.

Sean showed me his lines:

Floating notes

among deep blue

music of we

And then we got into the real talking. I was listening to Sean spell it out in his Aussie accent.

“I’m writing Haiku...”

I have heard of Haiku before.

I have heard my father speak of Haiku with his students. Sean goes on.

“Professor Tateo Imamura has organized a seminar on Haiku. I took part in two sessions.”

Then he said he would let me know the date of next session.

I met Tateo first when he organized a discussion on education. More than education, he was fond of literature, I sensed.

And no wonder “I realized later on” he teaches American literature at the university.

I took part in the next Haiku session. There were not many participants, even so it was still haunting. I was on the move to the well preserved Sky Lounge, the seventh floor of the ship. Over its windows you could still feel the vastness of deep blue ocean, no matter how heavy the occasional pitch and roll is.

Tateo didn’t speak much of Haiku. He simply explained the way Haiku is written (see factbox) and wanted us to write down our experiences. There were some poems written before I joined the session: on Chrysanthemums and the sea. In the session I took part, the Haiku had to be based on our visit to Chennai.

We had to write in our mother tongue first, because Tateo believed it is the strongest medium to pour out our heart. Though I think in Sinhala, sometimes it is hard to write down my thoughts as they are. I wrote one in Sinhala, and I had a real hard time translating it into English.

When I expressed my trouble, Tateo just smiled and said: “I know translation is a hard job”.

I was observing my Japanese friends write Haiku in their own calligraphic way. They would be translated later on by Imamura. For the moment he explained what they had written.

I was full of excitement. I have never talked about it with my father “so I wanted to convey this experience to him.

And when I made a phone call to my father sometime later he sounded overjoyed.

He sounded as if he had lots to say.

“Some of them have been translated into Sinhala. I’ll show you some writings when you come here. Did he tell you about Bassho?”

Of course he did. In Tateo’s tiny handout, there is reference to Basho with one of his Haiku:

Old pond

A frog jumps in

sound of water.

With that memory I read some parts of Sean’s note over and over again:

“It sounds so relaxing as we are travelling from one season to another on a cruise ship.

For me Haiku is something short and sweet with a mystery about it. It’s a mystery of interpretation double meaning of portraying something vast or profound, or even simple and common, or both at the same time... I feel it’s a great experience to have some creative contemplation, connecting something apparent with mystery, finding or searching for something new or deeper with humour, and learning a little piece of Japanese artful expression.”

Isn’t that a treasured memory that sinks in half down and half up within myself, I muse.

Hey Sean, I’m thinking of you... right now!

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