Songbirds fly through the March air in the meadow out my back door. It’s crisp and clear air, not fogged at dawn, but windswept and decluttered. I’ve written exactly eight haiku in March as of the eighth day of the month, and I’m halfway through 100 days of 100 haiku. This haiku study is a remarkable observation of the present moment with a tangible poem to capture it. I began my study of Sōtō Zen almost 25 years ago and writing haiku not long after that, but the daily devotion to haiku in the last 50 days has changed something in me.
In undergrad, I had a friend who was such a complex yet simple young man and I adored our time together. He was one of the few friends I had at the time with a car, and it wasn’t long before the front seat may well have had my name on it. He played this game when I was a passenger in his car (it didn’t matter if there were others in the back, and there often were, or if we were alone, as we often were).
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to ALL DAY to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.