More than Instinct

Tea: Mandarin Green

Music: Brookville, "Golden"

Time: Night.

Bear with me here. I might not get all the way around to anything resembling a point. I'm circling, as a friend says, toward something.

I've been rereading Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses of late. I've also been, as ever, listening to a good deal of music and viewing a huge amount of art (including one installation which combined prints on rice paper with the scent of sixty pounds of loose-leaf jasmine tea, adding another sense to the mix).

And it's got me wondering how much biology has to do with our appreciation of -- and emotional responses to -- art.

The sadness inherent in minor keys, I can comprehend. A friend of mine once observed that life sings in a minor key, and life is a fragile and (physically) finite thing.

I understand the links between red and violent emotion. Your opponent/prey is bleeding, and it's up to you to keep that gusher going until (a) the threat is ended or (b) dinner is served. (There might be more than one "and" in there. I prefer not to think about that too much.)

And I get that the ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump of a blues shuffle echoes the heartbeat.

But is that really all there is to it? Is it only our DNA, some trace race memory encoded in the genome, that makes the heart soar with the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria or causes us to shudder at Munch's The Scream? Why do Buson's haiku slip tiny needles into our memory centers, making us sure we should remember the scenes he describes?

Maybe there is. I'm sure there's a wealth of research on the subject (and on the subjects), all of it beyond my powers of comprehension.

But at heart (and call this blind faith if you will), I don't believe it's purely physical. I believe we're made -- fashioned -- with a spiritual bent toward beauty, toward harmony -- and yes, toward joy.

Art doesn't have to include all or even any of those elements, obviously. Sometimes, for the sake of a greater good, we must be shown what upsets, even repels us. A Modest Proposal is hardly beautiful, joyful or harmonious. Neither is Guernica. But our response to them -- horror at the effects of modern warfare, shocked compassion for starving children -- reinforce our humanity.

We are our DNA, yes. But we're more than that. We're body, mind, spirit, each resonating to its own frequency. And when those frequencies harmonize ... that's where art lives.

Only For a Moment and the Moment's Gone

Tea: Chai

Music: The Jayhawks, "Blue"

Time: Night.

Hied myself to Homer's Coffeehouse in Overland Park today, to get some editing done and spend some of the gift certificate my fourth graders gave me for Christmas.

There was a stray pink glove in the snowy parking lot.

Horrid me, my first thought wasn't, "Oh, some poor person has a cold hand." It was "Oooh. Must take pictures."

So I did. Eight of them, to be exact. Then I went inside, had a mocha and a bagel, and plunged headfirst into words for more than an hour. When I came out, it was warmer and the glove was half-submerged in a puddle.

So, of course, I pulled the camera out again. But something was wrong. No matter how I tried, I kept getting my own reflection in the shot.

I may go back later this week to see things in a different light. Maybe the glove will be there. Maybe it won't. Either way, there'll be no second chance to capture the shot I missed earlier today.

And that's fine. I'd rather take my chances on tricks of light than engineer all the reality out of a photograph. There's something appealing in capturing an image that can never be captured the same way again -- which more than makes up for any angst at missing one.

For me, I suppose, that's the difference between a photograph and a photo illustration. It's an odd sort of parse, I know. Maybe it's because for me, photography is like haiku. There's a moment, briefly captured, that is sure to change -- and some things are more beautiful for being transitory.

Three by Threes

Tea: Arctic Storm

Music: Keiko Matsui, "Water Lily", "Forever Forever" and "Wildflower"

Time: Night.

It's Thursday, which means it was teaching day with the fourth graders.

Today's theme: Haiku. And not that tensionless 5-7-5 crap, written by textbook writers. The biggies, as translated by Robert Hass.

One by Basho:

A caterpillar,
this deep in fall --
still not a butterfly.

One by Buson:

Green plum --
it draws her eyebrows
together.

And one by Issa:

I envy
that child being scolded:
end of the year.

"So what," I asked, "do all three of these poems have in common?"

Hands shot up at almost every desk, with the same answer: "They don't make sense."

Oh, fun. Time to earn my volunteer's pay.

We started with the basics: Three lines (actually, two and one); no more than 17 syllables; and some sort of seasonal reference.

Then, the payoff point: "Each of these poems uses a few words to tell a much bigger story."

More blank looks. But we -- and I do mean we -- worked through it. And one by one, the light bulbs went on.

(No, I'm not going to spell out the stories. You're bright, or you wouldn't be here.)

So was the whole lesson -- including an assignment/exhortation to observe the world for a week and come up with at least one haiku based on that observation -- a bit heavy for nine- and ten-year-olds?

I don't think so. Kids are smarter than textbook writers think. Fourth graders get that seasons change, that moments happen and then are gone and that the stories are in the details.

And they can count to 17. They'll be fine.

Cup XLIII: "Haiku!" "Gesundheit!"

Tea: Arctic Storm

Music: Guitarcraft Circle of Seattle, "Ikada Jima"

Time: Evening

Yet one more possibly significant development, as the days shorten and grow cooler: Haiku (the sensibility, not merely the form) seems to have re-entered my life.

It's a hesitant re-entry, one foot only halfway over the threshold. I get the feeling that if I move too quickly toward it, I'll scare it away.

It started in September, on the first day I sat in with the high school English class.

morning lessons;
crawling across my black boot,
a black cricket

And then, for weeks ... nothing. Not so much writer's block as insight block.

I used to get haiku moments much more regularly. Had a few of the results published here and there under the primary pen name, which was kind of cool, and took part in several online discussion groups on the topic.

Oh, and on the topic of 5/7/5 (syllables, that is): Used to write that way all the time. Still do sometimes. More often than not, I don't.

Then the moments ... well, went away. More likely, they were there and I just wasn't paying attention. But of late, I've tried to be more of the momentarian I used to try to be.

Last night, out of town and alone at dinner (except for the moments when my booth was co-occupied by the resident elf, who is six years old and likes Junie B. Jones and eats her dinner from her "funny bowl with a nose on it") , I began rereading "The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa," edited by Robert Hass.

(And yes, the funny bowl does have a nose on it. "What are you eating?" I asked. "I don't know," she said. "I've never had it before.")

I skipped Basho, although I'll go back to him later. I spent most of the time on Buson, then got about halfway through Issa. Three different styles, each with much to recommend it. I leave it to you to find your own favorite(s).

Then, I read a haiku-infused post in Midnight Anchorage, which is a young blog (and already one of my favorites) filled with words both old and new. Synchronicity.

Maybe it was the reacquaintance with the classics. Maybe I'm just paying more attention. But on the way to a harp concert this evening, there it was:

thin autumn light;
how will the squirrel stay warm
with half a tail?

If nothing else, it's good practice in awareness. If something else ... well, I suppose that's not entirely up to me to define.

Tonight's story:

Lafcadio Hearn, "Yuki-Onna"