Bamboo Shoot: Close Encounters

I’m not given to superstition or unsupported flights of imagination, but not so long ago, I had a strange experience, the details of which greatly amused my friends. Even now, the story still gains me much-needed status in chance conversation.

At a rather grand poetry festival, a well-known poet had recounted to us how, one day, he had opened the morning paper to see his own name spread across the front page in stark black capitals: ANTHONY THWAITE. Much intrigued, he had prepared his breakfast and returned to find the headline now saying ANTHRAX THREAT. Imagine my surprise then, when, only days later, the same trick was played on me.

I was sitting quietly in an almost empty reception area of the eye-clinic at my local hospital. To my left was a large reception desk, between which and the swing doors to my right, a young nurse was scurrying to and fro carrying files and forms; sometimes equipment. And on the desk was a large notice which said I’M GOING MAD. Well, after she had passed me for the umpteenth time, I couldn’t resist. ‘I’m not surprised’, I said.

She paused, ‘Pardon?’

‘I said, I’m not surprised’. . . and I smiled to reassure her of my normality.

She frowned as if perplexed; and when she next appeared, she stopped, ‘What were you on about?’

I smiled again, ‘Sorry, I just said that I’m not surprised, really . . . about your going mad’, and I pointed to the notice, which now read INCOMING MAIL . . .

Is it any wonder that our long gone ancestors sometimes suspected an infinitely bored God of poking a divine finger into our human affairs? Wasn’t that, after all, why I had raised my eyes, then, in a mix of mock horror and amused embarrassment, to the thin blue shield separating us from that imponderable blackness?

that damned cat again –
it knows me through doubled glass
at 50 yards

*

Close Encounters references Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Man meets extraterrestrial visitors). The misreading of words has nothing to do with poor eyesight; this part of my tale is about the nature of perception—in this case visual perception. The retina of the eye is an extension of the brain; and it only receives various wavelengths of light. These are computerised at various brain levels, making reference to the memory banks of past experience, in order to provide the ‘mind’ with a consistent view of the world (there is no real objective view of things—only a useful illusion of reality). But visual ‘mistakes’ can be made, and probably everyone has experienced such mistakes. First, something seen at distance may change into something else on closer inspection. But also sometimes, ‘pressed for time’ perhaps, the eye takes in insufficient information to make accurate perception possible; and the eye-brain makes its best guess. This is what has happened in my story (the fact that I was in an eye hospital is just one of those coincidental quirks of life). Note, that possibly something similar happened to Soseki in his Grass Pillow (BS 10.3; Sep 2000, pp44/45) when he thinks that he has seen a woman—his eye-brain deceived his mind. In the final paragraph, my looking upwards in embarrassment is an example of what psychologists would call ‘displacement activity’ (many other animals use it)—a superficially pointless action to relieve stress or avoid aggression etc. However, I am willing to bet that in Man’s case the act of looking upwards also has its roots in the history of religious culture—we look up to curse or thank our God. The ‘thin blue shield’ is, of course, Earth’s atmosphere—and parallels the double-glazing separating me from the cat who may be regarding me as some vengeful god.

by Bamboo Shoot
Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

Bamboo Shoot: thoughts, words, writing …

… another year
....yet still green
............................ —the ginkgo leaves
.....fall from my notebook …

***

24.10.97: Kew. A morning of coffee spoons and conversation, a brief Italian extravagance for lunch, and now—the brilliance of a late October afternoon as time ambles itself away into non-existence around The Gardens. The mind floats somewhere between mislaid memory and bright enthusiasm for yet another collection that would be my first; and already a small notebook is fat with coloured leaves, sketches, and some thirty poems that like as not will never see the light of print. Colours and smells of autumn swirl about me as I retrace old steps towards the Pagoda and Chokushi Mon …

.....flagpole,
.....there in my youth—
.....I can hardly look up at you

*
Built in 1910—a near life-size replica of a sixteenth century Buddhist temple gateway in Kyoto, Kew’s Gateway of the Imperial Messenger has changed since I saw it last. Time and the English climate have done neither of us favours; but Chokushi Mon has recently been rejuvenated by a team of Japanese master-craftsmen—themselves a dwindling breed. Copper tiles have replaced old lead and cedar shingle, finely carved panels have been repaired or reworked; and set now, jewel-like, in a newly constructed landscape—amongst flowering cherry, bamboo, acer, Kurume azalea and other Japanese cultivars—something like a former magnificence has been restored. Sunlight once again returns enhanced from the lacquers and warm-toned timbers of Chokushi Mon …

.....rain comes through my thatch,
.....and summer sun stings my head—
.....telling me something

Japanese gardens are, in general, more formal than their English counterparts; though not in any regimental sense—no merely mechanical juxtapositioning of plants and artefacts. The aim is always an aesthetic mix of tradition and balance, symbolism and simple beauty; and in designing the Japanese garden at Kew, a prime concern has been to both complement Chokushi Mon and blend in with western botanical surroundings. Old established pines have been allowed to fittingly share the stage with Hinoki—the Shinto-sacred conifer of whose wood Chokushi Mon is constructed; while in future years, the Japanese custom of severe clipping and pruning will be restrained, thus allowing most plants to grow towards their natural shape. Yet overall, a strong spiritual sense of Orient is aroused symbolically by the way the landscape is constructed. Chokushi Mon contains, and is encircled by, a fusion of principles that might seem to embody the nature of all experience.

There is a Garden of Peace that recalls to mind the roji or traditional tea garden—where one can follow stone lanterns, pebbled path and stepping stones to reach a barely audible tsukubai—a tranquil walk to rinse away the weariness of the world …

.....some samurai!
.....… aching ankles
............................forgot my thank you …
.....the taste of tea

… whilst elsewhere, a Garden of Activity evokes austere mountain sceneries with clastic rock-flows that tumble incessantly towards a gravel sea—a sea forever raked by unchanging waves and the flotsam from overhanging pines …

.....Chokushi Mon.
.....Please keep off the gravel.
.....… ‘footprints’ all over …

… and linking together tranquillity and action, the constant with the ephemeral, is a Garden of Harmony – an area of general and symbolic planting intended to reflect the natural beauty of the Japanese countryside. As yet this section is some ten years immature; but few will notice when, each spring, the senses are besieged by flowering of the loveliest of trees …

.....and after winter
.....what? The white cherry blossom
.....blowing in my face? …

*

Beneath a canopy of low-branched flowering cherry, I find the haiku stone of bluish granite. The haiku is by Takahama Kyoshi—written following a visit to Kew made in 1936; the stone itself donated by family in 1979 – some twenty years after Kyoshi’s death. There is a nearby transcript:

.....Even sparrows
.....Freed from all fear of man
.....England in Spring

So expressed, I do not care for these sentiments—they seem to me to have an air of ingratiating formality that I do not attribute to Kyoshi; after all, Japanese haiku are not necessarily treated faithfully by their translations. And then, perhaps, for whatever reason, not all haiku may be faithful to their motivating emotions; and indeed, there is something else that bothers me. For some time I stand brooding over Kyoshi’s stone, thinking about what Kyoshi really felt he meant in his own language, and whether he too … until I am joined by two young Japanese whom I’d noticed earlier. At distance, they had had the chattering full-of-lifeness of bright birds; now—in alien presence—they fall into unfathomable silence. And for a moment, I am incautious of my thoughts—I point …

..... –Not good haiku?
..... –Yeaah! Not good.
..... –It’s by Kyoshi!
..... –Hey, yeaah—He’s dead famous.
..... –But maybe not even true?...

…and I point again—this time to where, not far from the tsukubai, the stripped body of a small bird lies cooling in its last rays of sunlight …

.....near Kyoshi’s stone,
.....the crow pays close attention
.....to a crimsoned corpse


***
.......................................... … old established pines …
..........................................needles and cones fall to the bridge
..........................................twixt crane and turtle …



there is a specimen of Tai Haku
the Great White Cherry—much
valued in Japan. Between the 18th
& 20th. centuries, it is said to have
disappeared from Japanese culture
only to be restored from a new clone
found in an English garden.

***

........................................… the flowers fade,
........................................pressed between yellowing pages
........................................of an unopened book …


The haibun is about Time and looking for Kyoshi’s haiku stone in Kew Gardens. It records the more or less immediate responses to events on a sunny October afternoon in 1997, and was largely sketched out and written over tea and fruitcake in a nearby Refreshment Pavilion. After the first haiku, the writing is sectionalised by asterisks:

The Pagoda, built in 1761/62 stands at 163ft. The flagstaff—a single trunk of Douglas Fir, 371 years old—was erected in 1959 and then stood at 225 ft; it is not the one I saw in the 1940s (almost as tall). The lifespan of such poles is c50 yrs; and sadly, the 1959 flagstaff (third of the big ones since 1861) was dismantled in August 2007 consequent to the depredations of age and woodpeckers. It will not be replaced (I know the feeling).

In section two, prior knowledge and informational texts for visitors have been reworked and transformed to suit a purpose. The second paragraph might, perhaps, be read as a desirable description of western haiku; while the whole is interspersed with spontaneous reflective haiku conjured up by a stroll around the garden. The first haiku expresses regret; the second, self-distaste at the memory of attending tea ceremony in the wrong spirit (the author blames his aching ankles for social forgetfulness). A tsukubai is a dripping water basin—situated near the tea-house of a roji, it serves a symbolic ritual purpose. The third haiku observes the disobedience of squirrels etc; and the fourth expresses existential cynicism in a section which ends up referencing A.E.Housman.

Section three is plain accurate description.

The fourth and last section foresees the future. It has one haiku and one piece of hand-script. Cranes and turtles have mythological associations with longevity in Japanese and Chinese culture, and angular and rounded islands are common traditional features of Japanese gardens. At Kew, two such islands are linked by a narrow bridge that annually receives the buffets of falling pine cones. In Japanese culture, pine trees hold some sense of good luck or the permanence of human relationships; but in the haiku, I was thinking only of the ultimate destruction of all things, given time. The piece of hand-script is a late contrivance, and imagines some future annotation of the writing. It notes a fortuitous piece of knowledge that might also be read as a metaphor for the origins of haiku in the west—except, of course, that haiku has never disappeared from Japanese culture.
The final haiku is strongly connected to the very first haiku in the haibun, making the whole piece of writing circular; feeling its way through the transient nature of both real and recorded existence—in my ending is my beginning. After all, this is the fate of all writing—it gets recycled; like us. It’s what we’re meant to do—just re-record and fade away … The haiku also references the Bhagavad Gita through T.S.Eliot’s The Dry Salvages (part3 ls.1-5). It occurred to me that these last two disembodied haiku might also be seen as ‘haiku stones’ after authorial demise.

October 2007

by Bamboo Shoot
Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

Bamboo Shoot: CIRQUE DU SOLEIL

The contortionist’s
bewitching smile says clearly
Don’t try this at home

the handstand expert
spotlit – his shadow falling
from the balcony

useless, my muscles
move – as if to join in with
the trapeze artists

performance over,
we watch the clowns and grotesques
revealing themselves
as young and smiling faces . . .
if only we could do that

by Bamboo Shoot
Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

Bamboo Shoot: CHURCH GOING

.

Sunday, and after a late breakfast and the morning papers, I headed west to begin a circuitous journey home.

a gasping crow
on top of a telegraph pole—
the heathland parched

My road took me through the small village of Damerham, where a large CHURCH FLOWER FESTIVAL notice was fixed to a tall hedge. Larkin-like, certainly no church connoisseur, I stopped; and passing through the thick, ochre-lichened walls into a sweet-smelling almost cuttable cold, it came again—the elusive sense of being elsewhere. The ambience was decidedly post-Sunday lunch—the church all but empty. One other visitor, booklet in hand and with a seeming interest in ceilings, quickly disappeared; while two elderly ladies—strangely still wearing woollen cardigans and tweed skirts—hardly seemed there at all in any material sense.

Only a few days earlier, there would have been humming preparations as summer flowers were gathered and joyously massed into every available embrasure, hung in baskets, and arranged on and around every appropriate surface. There would have been the excitements and quiet pleasures of making ones own personal statement; and over cups of tea or coffee and skirmishes for the bourbon biscuits there would have been the small pecking-order reproofs and suggested aesthetic alterations. But now, two elderly ladies, who I took to be locals—willing hands or elected organisers, were simply passing time, vaguely touching a pew here or a vase there as they moved about the church; eking out the thin verbal subsistence of world opinion with village gossip. Their whispers seemed to live out their own brief lives—hanging in the air, crisp as winter breath, before dying away to vanish into the stonework. There was a brief darkening of my vision – some small flux of blood perhaps to eye or brain that I could easily put down to tiredness; but with it came a change of mood, and I noticed suddenly that the flowers were too sweetly scented, their petals already starting to scatter into pools of shabby light. Another year. Another flower festival.
.

....after weary miles,.............................in an old Norman church,
....the cool of white interior walls;...........two ghost-like ladies
....peace, and scent of flowers..................discuss a prostate

Some years later, I read of Wiltshire’s being a ‘top snowdrop county’, that in February, Damerham churchyard harbours a sea of snowdrops, and that snowdrops are not infrequently found near sites of religious buildings—a Catholic custom being their use in the celebration of Candlemas. But as I wandered then out onto the gravel paths and rough grass between the pitching and tossing gravestones, I was wondering what words passed for ‘prostate problems’ in the old days—what relevant herbs might still be seeding out amongst the ancient dead. I looked down and laughed—there were plenty of dandelions. I looked up, and saw the sun.

.
.

by Bamboo Shoot
Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
first published in Dover Beach and My Back Yard (BHS Haibun Anthology, 2007)

Bamboo Shoot: MEETING PLACE

.

As we descend the well worn path towards the gate, he paces casually down the other side to meet us. He is seriously big. There can be no mistakes with this one. No thoughts of flamboyant veronicas with an old anorak; and side-stepping him would be like trying to cross the road outside my house on a sunny bank holiday weekend. We close in, and without so much as an excuse me for a minute – he engages us with a full profile pee.
.

Frustrated and bored,
but friendly enough – the bull
in our next field
.

Once he has quite finished, two of us lean over to scratch the enormous four hands-width head. I look at the steepish hill beyond, and then at his massive bulk and think Years ago, with that escape route over wired fence to the left and the earthquake warning of your hooves behind me, I might just have taken you on to the top up there; might have still, but that I’m just a knackered old git, while you, you great hunk of meat and no potatoes, you’re not interested anyway. And so what, old friend – only Time wins at the last.

Meanwhile, our leader of men is telling us that If there’s no warning sign, he’s not dangerous; and if he is dangerous, he shouldn’t be in the field anyway. Nice theory, I think; and we all follow him over the gate and then into the nearest adjacent field – not too casually.

.
by Bamboo Shoot

Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
first published in Blithe Spirit 17:4, 2007

Bamboo Shoot: JOURNEY

.

It was a day to be near water. Overhead, the sun had become a blinding star; and as I drove through Lyndhurst and Beaulieu towards Lepe, all over the swim of heath and road summer’s foals had dropped like autumn chestnuts.

gorse-heath and tarmac .........................inescapable heat –
one shimmer – the skyline trees .............young ponies lie motionless
drowning in it .......................................crows pick in droppings

Waves of tar, manure and dust lifted from the ground as the road ribboned its way through town and village, ran beneath short respites of ancient forest, and flowed across open heath to meander between seared and rank-sweet hedgerows. Not until I neared the coast did I find myself in narrow green lanes that let me breathe.
.

hedgerows baking hot.
White plates of Hogweed – distant
hush of sea on flint

.
A large oak canopied the car. Yellow-buttoned Cat’s Ear, wild privet and honeysuckle brightened and spiced a well-worn path leading shoreward. And across The Solent, as in some badly taken photograph, the milk-washed thin dark landmass of the Isle of Wight hung between pewter sky and sparkling pewter sea – Cowes harbour visible but almost featureless.

It was the day of the Round the Island Race; but there was little wind, and though race yachts had long since gone, somewhere out of sight, sun and sailors were glowering at each other in conditions that enforced a shortening of the slowest race on record.

Midday passed. The tide ebbed in suffocating stillness. A few weekend boats, their numbered sails torn out of trigonometry books, still lay like litter in the island’s lee, drifting forlornly up and down between channel markers; while not far away, a man had waded out some fifty yards. And slack-tide happened with all the aura of the supernatural. When had I noticed that the flinty slop had ceased – that the sea had become motionless; that the clamour of gulls was only accentuating silence? Time itself seemed at a standstill – everything held in some non-locality of existence – a man up to his waist in water, the motionless drift of yachts. In that immeasurable instant, the energy of the spirit and of the whole Universe seemed drained into the water to power the recommencement of its tireless pendular swing … absurdly, came the thought of a small dog suspended over an unsuspecting parasol * … then, a ripple of light and air as some infinitesimal imperfection in the continuum tipped the balance back.

midday chorus ....................................with no perspective
on exposed rocks ..................................at such a distance
......................seagulls .................................................two yachts
screaming over something ....................idly converge

Much later, returning to my lodging, I stopped in Beaulieu for a scrambled egg tea – discussing the finer points of Escoffier’s method with the student chef-du-jour. Then, driving slowly on but finding the heathland still furiously hot in the closing afternoon, I stopped, left the car, and wandered aimlessly till sundown – its brief breath of cool air enhanced by the heat of the passing day.

a chestnut foal, ...................................sundown, and the cool wind
hesitant – with the setting sun .............over the chestnut foal’s ribs
in the summer gorse ............................runs a shudder
.

by Bamboo Shoot
Salibury, Wiltshire, England
first published in Blithe Spirit 17.2, 2007

* cf. The New Accelerator by H. G. Wells

Bamboo Shoot: STRAWBERRYING

.

Bees in morning clover. Floppy-hatted, armed with two baskets each, we gathered strawberries at a local farm. What did it matter that my spine nagged, that I spent most of the time on hands and knees – at 10 o’clock the sun was generously warm, and our baskets soon topple-tilted with the tart and jammy fruit. Someone was in his heaven if there was coffee and Cointreau on the terrace and fresh, hard-worked for strawberries to look forward to.

a taste of honey
in the strawberry fields –
slugs too

The swelling sun was glittering redly through the tops of the tallest skyline trees when we took them finally from their place of cold and dark confinement. Carefully, we piled them into pyramids and dressed them with drizzles of honeyed crystal; then left them to sweat while we feasted on meat and wine. And when, at last, we brought them – glistening – to the table for the slow annointment with rivulets of cream, the warm sweetness of their flesh incensed our nostrils. Our gods spoke. We raised the implements of scooped steel and sought some sign to begin the chase and slaughter. We saw their pinkness run out into the white bowls, and our stained mouths murmured mantras of devotion. Only briefly did we stop to decide which ones would be the last – the chosen ones.

images on TV.
All the swollen bellies –
one sort or another

Later, the three of us sat out on the warm, stone-flagged patio; and alcohol worked its analgesic miracles. We watched the garden dissolve away at the edges as light decayed to other wavelengths, and conversation frayed into silence and the drugged amnesia of honey suckle. But the slow drip of Bacardi to my brain went unchecked; and as one pain drowned, others bloated their way back to the surface. Abruptly, it was time to leave – and suddenly the fixed stars above the tarmac mile stretching back to my lodgings seemed less steady than on other occasions.

a sky full of stars –
how great the gulf between us.
Only a mile to go

Summer '92

by Bamboo Shoot

Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

haibun "Stawberrying" first published in Blithe Spirit 14:3, 2004

Bamboo Shoot: A NOTE ON THE USE OF PRESENT TENSE IN HAIBUN

.

Though not literarily educated, I take issue with the conditioned adoption of any one literary style simply because it is believed (and constantly disseminated as) best. The best standard narrative writers are, I feel, those who can slip readily and seamlessly from one tense or style to another when felt appropriate. I see no reason why different rules should apply to writers of haibun. Fragmentation of sentences, noun-phrasing, word-block association, literary allusion and so on are not solely confined to present tense writing; and I regard it as largely a myth that the use of present tense brings ‘a kind of power to words that is unusual’. For myself, once immersed in a narrative, having quickly accepted its conventions, I am largely oblivious to the tense of its writing. Certainly, writing in the present tense does carry a certain brightness; and when Phillip Marlowe says (as he might have done) …so I turn the corner, and there’s Moose with a loaded gun pointing right at me …we do have the impression of being at Marlowe’s shoulder in the act of discovery; but the sense of being in the action – a planned illusion – is no more than that generated by Ruth Rendell writing in the past tense. And try re-writing these first lines of a Seamus Heaney poem in the present tense – then ask yourself how much difference it makes in terms of affect,

Inishbofin on a Sunday morning.
Sunlight, turfsmoke, seagulls, boatslip, diesel.
One by one we were being handed down
Into a boat that dipped and shilly-shallied
Scaresomely every time. We sat tight
On short cross-benches, in nervous twos and threes,

Here, for instance, the imagery far exceeds any thought of tense; and in fact one might feel that the alliterative fight between d’s and s’es over the whole piece makes the use of past tense in l.4 undeniably the correct aesthetic. The use of present tense involves more than just wanting to create an I was there illusion. It involves consideration of overall context and desired tone of the writing, and perhaps how the use of any tense might affect sound qualities and awkwardness of line construction. Current use of present tense in haibun is, I feel, more than just cliché; its much asserted effectiveness seems largely myth – mythic ‘truth’ being the foundation of didact, dogma and ideology. Already we are seeing the emergence of the exclusive high rhetoric of mystification with terms like haibunic prose and templum effect. Reiterated clap-trap ultimately obfuscates that which is essentially simple – in this case, the learning how to write effective prose. Use of the present tense must be decided by aesthetic and technical judgement – not by the fact that one is writing a haibun.

What is of paramount importance in haibun is the dialogue between haiku and prose. Not merely illustrative, certainly not repetitive (as Mr Eliot would have said, don’t write in poetry what can be better expressed in other ways), each haiku should, at least, enlarge its immediately adjacent text; and at best (I speculate), the whole text might be charged with visions of the moment that touch the raw edges of some prevailing mood. In fact, there may be more to it than that; since if strong haiku are gathered as a preliminary to writing some emergent prose, as I believe they should be (unless, perhaps, the haibun is an imaginary creation), then the haiku may well alter the nature of any such previous emotional conditioning. Indeed, otherwise un-placed haiku may well instigate the writing of the wholly factitious.

It occurred to me back in the ‘90s, that haibun is, perhaps, not dissimilar to Van Gogh’s letters to Theo. These were not infrequently illustrated. But why? VG was certainly no slouch at writing; and to illustrate would have taken him longer, perhaps, than to find the necessary words. No doubt he was, in part, proving his abilities to Theo; but might he not also have been finding windows to the heart – to better illuminate the text of the day?

.

***

Strawberrying

Dear God, not again! Like a nuisance caller in the night, my upper respiratory tract is once more alerting me to its existence: Do something, or you’ll regret it. Each day, I wake and think It’s gone, It’s really gone … then this. I put down Auden, locate my dressing gown and grope downstairs. Boil water, squeeze lemon, spoon out cut-price honey – no Orange Blossom for a bloody cold – add boiling water and return to bed where I sip cautiously at the magic brew and pop a Night Nurse torpedo for good measure. Eight weeks! Eight sodding weeks now; and I sip away to the dregs until my eyes close … and Auden slips unnoticed to the floor …

… bees in morning clover … floppy-hatted, armed with two baskets each, we are gathering strawberries at some local farm … my spine is nagging and I am on my hands and knees – but by 10 o’clock the sun is generously warm and our baskets soon topple-tilting with the tart and jammy fruit. Someone’s in his heaven if there’s coffee and Cointreau on the terrace and fresh hard-worked for strawberries to look forward to …

a taste of honey
in the strawberry fields –
slugs too

… the swelling sun glitters redly through the tops of the tallest skyline trees as we take them finally from their place of cold and dark confinement. Carefully, we pile them into pyramids and dress them with drizzles of honeyed crystal; leaving them to sweat while we feast on meat and wine … until at last we bring them – glistening – to the table for the slow anointment with rivulets of cream, our nostrils incensed by the warm sweetness of their flesh. And when our gods speak, we raise the implements of scooped steel and seek some sign to begin the chase and slaughter … to see their pinkness run out into the white bowls … to hear our stained mouths murmuring mantras of devotion. Only briefly do we stop to decide which ones will be the last – the chosen ones.

images on TV.
All the swollen bellies –
one sort or another

… and now, the three of us are sitting out on a warm, stone-flagged patio; and alcohol is working its analgesic miracles. We watch the garden dissolve away at the edges as light decays to other wavelengths, and conversation frays into silence and the drugged amnesia of honey suckle … and the slow drip of Bacardi to my brain goes unchecked until, as one pain drowns, others bloat their way back to the surface … abruptly, it is time to leave … and the fixed stars above the tarmac mile stretching back to my lodgings seem less steady than on other occasions.

a sky full of stars –
how great the gulf between us.
Only a mile to go

… but it is a long mile … ‘for nothing now …… bees in morning clover …

.

***

In transposing Strawberrying, I first tried putting everything just as it was into the present tense. Frankly, I didn’t think it made much reading difference to the two outer sections. As for the middle section, I think I’d already realised that that had present tense potential, but felt that while partial change wouldn’t work, complete change would make it difficult to fit the result into a larger structure largely written in past tense. Ultimately, I found that ‘major adjustments’ were needed to produce something coherent in itself and in agreement with the original intended tone of the whole. I’m pleased enough with the result; not so much because I have improved the middle section by changing the tense (although I think some ‘ceremonial tone’ has been lost in the rephrasing) but because doing so has ‘forced’ me into finding a new technical approach – a different door to the same required effect. So I’m grateful to Jeffrey for his friendly push; at my age one needs it.

Present tense writing can be used in several ways:

....As a tool,eg for structural or tonal reasons. (Diary of a Bad Year; JM Coetzee, I found a good read)

....As fashionably or doctrinally ordained method.

....As a cosmetic to tart up poor content or style, (though you’d have to know first).

....As an attempted cleverness.

....For no particular reason.

Only the first makes for ‘good’ writing. We might, perhaps, best follow Pope’s precept: the final effect should echo the sense or the intent.

I suspect that the supposed effects of present tense writing in haibun probably owe as much to conditioned (even thoughtless) reading habits as anything else. Journey, generously reviewed in Haibun Today (11/2007) was written entirely in past tense; yet its third paragraph gives a present tense feel simply by a change of action. And while the piece appeared to suggest a ‘trance-like state’, it was actually written in a very un-trance-like state of mind. Good readers will, to some extent at least, imagine their own scenarios from any worthwhile narrative. For myself, I find that the ‘overuse’ of present tense by other writers becomes something of a boring affectation; while I believe that exposure of ‘novice’ haibun writers to the same, risks encouraging lazy habits and avoidance of intelligent enterprise. Why walk on one leg, when we are given two?

by Bamboo Shoot

Salisbury, Wiltshire, England