Into
Great Silence
There
are haiku which depict a scene in a way that open that scene to a luminosity
that reverberates in the mind and heart of the reader. Richard Wright’s haiku 743 has that effect on
me:
In
the still orchard
A
petal falls to the grass;
A
bird stops singing.
The
haiku is in 5-7-5. Each line is a grammatical unit. Lines 1 and 2 form a complete sentence. Line 3 is also a sentence. The two sentences are linked by the use of a
semi-colon which indicates that line 3 is an additional part of lines 1 and
2. I think you could read line 3 as
saying that the petal falls to the grass as a bird stops singing; the two
are happening at the same time.
The
setting is an orchard in spring. The
season word is ‘petal’ and with that single word the season is
established. The word ‘grass’ narrows
the focus a little; it would seem to be mid-spring or the height of
spring. For this reason I think of apple
blossoms rather than plum when in my mind’s eye I depict the scene.
The
orchard is still; there is no wind. Into
the stillness there is the smallest movement; a petal falls. At the same time a bird stops singing,
deepening the stillness with silence.
The
entire haiku depicts a movement into silence and stillness. Line 1 gives us an orchard untouched by the
wind. A petal falls, then comes to rest
on the grass. The movement of the petal
ends in stillness. A bird has been singing,
but then stops. The falling petal moves
into stillness, merging with the stillness of the orchard. The bird ceases its singing, moving into
silence, merging with the stillness of the orchard.
I
often go for a morning walk. I live in a
rural area of Northern California. My
walk is on a rural road which isn’t very wide; if two cars meet one of them has
to pull over to the let the other one pass.
For this reason, drivers go slow and there is not much traffic on the
road, so I don’t have to worry about speeding cars or crossing traffic.
I
usually walk in the hour before sunrise.
I have, now and then, noticed that just as the sun sends its first rays
over the horizon sometimes there is a pause, of maybe 20 seconds, in the world
around me. For example, where I live
there is a lot of bird life. In the
morning they are all singing and chattering.
But just at that moment when the sun first appears, sometimes there will
be a pause, the birds will fall silent for a bit. If the sky is cloudy, or the morning is
misty, this doesn’t happen. But on a
clear morning I have observed this on a number of occasions.
This
haiku reminds me of that experience; when nature moves into a silence and
stillness and offers us a vision of that realm.
This vision of that realm of silence and stillness beckons us, and
suggests to us, that there is a realm of silence and stillness that can be
found within. This haiku can be read as
an allegory for that interior experience of silence and stillness; that realm
where thoughts fall and come to rest on the ground of being, where feelings and
desires cease their seductive singing, and we experience the inner serenity
that can be found within. This is a
haiku about return; returning to the primordial silence and stillness out of
which all things emerge.
The
realm of nature and the realm of the mind within are porous to each other; they
resonate with each other. I think that
is one reason why some haiku can be so moving to us; because they unite these
two dimensions of our experience. It is
difficult to articulate the realm of mind because it is so close to us. Haiku offer us a way of comprehending the
interior realm through depicting nature and inviting us to see how nature and
mind are part of the same vastness; that there are seasons of nature and that
there are seasons of the mind, that there is a stillness found in nature which
is the stillness that can be found within, in our own minds and in our hearts.
