Fleeting Moments-Captured Moods

For every whirling dervish that resides in one's inside-madly swirling to life songs, life sorrows-there is a quiet epicenter, an observer, a recounter of escaping instances, anchoring that movement, holding it tight-tightly escaping. While the ecstasies of abandon, sema swirls, paint the worlds in color and passion, the center remains silent, clear, transparent, recording bit by bit, the lived fleeting moments, capturing moods in brief jewel words-the Haikus. Masterpieces of japanese soul, they record the now, present and alive, for all eternity in melodic rythm of syllables, five, seven, and five- and thus briefly, leave a lived moment of picture, smell and song-for posterity.

Born of the Zen buddhist tradition, these brief moment-poems,the Haikus, capture its meditative spirit, in contemplation of nature, the fleeting season cycles, and a approach that emphasises an acute awareness of the present, of now, of conscious and alive. Completely opposed to the sufi way of losing the self, in the divine beloved, the haikus were a vehicle to record the inner instance, and its response to the outer ,natural world. Thus Matsuo Basho wrote:

Such stillness-
the cries of the cicadas
sink into the rocks.

or again, by Issa:

A lovely thing to see;
through the paper window holes
the Galaxy.

A bush warbler comes-
and starts to wipe his muddy feet
among the blossoming plums.

In its eye
the far-off hills are mirrored-
dragonfly!

A particularly well known one by Ryokan,

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window.

captures both the poets mirth at the transitory materialism and the essence of his own spirituality.