Water Shining Beyond the Fields: Haibun Travels Southeast Asia
by John Brandi, 2006
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Water Shining Beyond the Fields focuses on travel in Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Southern China, and Thailand, presented in the haibun form, celebrated by the Japanese poet Basho in the 17th century. John Brandi defines the form in his latest book: "Haibun might traditionally be regarded as a series of en situ prose descriptions concluded by a haiku. The job of the haiku is to reveal an unexpected flash, an essence not quite captured in the prose." He adds: "But I didn' t set out to follow any rules, my own or Basho's. I set out to set out."

Water Shining Beyond the Fields is full of long walks, misty temples, wild bus rides, solitary river excursions, culinary escapades and off-the-wall humor. It is also a cultural and political journey, one that eventually throws light on our survival options in a troubled world.

Excerpts

…Long live imagination! It’s our raft within the chopped-up sea of typhoon and undertow; the blasphemous dictators, the stink of ward that negates the sanctity of life. The rigid will suffer their own stump-=steady karma amid resilient sprays of bamboo washed with storm.  Meanwhile, I splash ink from the brush, stretch the borders of the page to contain the shifting zodiac over hills and rivers. I commit myself to this blank page, just as I’d like to commit to each arriving moment within the day. Nothing’s certain, yet from all that’s uncertain or lost in the leaf-strewn corners of what we do not understand, arrives a shine, a whistling gale, a jagged beam more intense than looking into the sun. This shine is the emptiness of infinity where everything’s okay, the essential tranquility where the artist’s secret vision breaks from its wily seed and gives new shape to the world. Heavy with importance, light as a raindrop, this arrival is our feast, our temporary home, our galaxy of the moment, or bold, distant possibility brought near.

It’s hard to explain what it means to visit these Thai temples. For some, the comparison to visiting European cathedrals might suffice. I loved Chartres because it is a true sanctuary. In the darkness, it is the Mother who presides. Surrounded by stained-glass windows, it is the labyrinth that provides the haunting experience of walking the inward-narrowing spiral, retracing the ups and downs of one’s life. As in Chartres, you enter a Thai wat, especially the more delicate northern-style ones, to experience sacred space. Dirt, noise, and the chaos of the secular world are left behind. There are architectural details to absorb, sure, but one enters Wat Phumin primarily to leave the world’s heat, step into the cool, offer a prayer for the well being of all, a nod in the direction of heaven—which is a nod to mother earth. Bow three times, honor body-mind-spirit, wisdom-insight-compassion. Fold palms to heart, lay them to the earth. Lose the eyes to the inner chiaroscuro, the architecture of the psyche:

                                    in the darkness
                                    a sparrow sharpens its beak
                                    in Buddha’s palm.

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