On the island of Saint Helena, there lives an endurable 187-year-old tortoise named Johnathan, the oldest known living animal on land. At this moment, he is grazing upon a grassy field, his eyes blinking wisely, his head poking down from time to time.
old tortoise sleeps
soundly in the hush of night —
a sheltered life
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Author Notes
True Story!
Haibun is a literary form originating in Japan, combining prose and haiku. The range of haibun is broad and frequently includes autobiography, diary, essay, prose poem, short story and travel journal.
History of Haibun
The term -haibun- was first used by the 17th-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, in a letter to his disciple Kyorai in 1690. Basho was a prominent early writer of haibun. He wrote some as travel accounts during his various journeys, the most famous of which is -Narrow Road to the Interior.
Basho's shorter haibun includes compositions devoted to travel and others focusing on character sketches, landscape scenes, anecdotal vignettes, and occasional writings written to honor a specific patron or event. His Hut of the Phantom Dwelling can be classified as an essay while, in Saga Diary, he documents his day-to-day activities with his disciples on a summer retreat.
Traditional haibun typically took the form of a short description of a place, person or object, or a diary of a journey or other series of events in the poet's life. Haibun continued to be written by later haikai poets such as Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, and Masaoka Shiki. more information
Thank you for reading me,
Gypsy
picture from google public domain
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