just for today (haiku by Hansha Teki)

“Aotearoa/New Zealand was the last significant land mass on earth to be inhabited by the human species having, until a mere 800 years ago, been home only to vast rain forests of evergreen trees and unique native bird and insect life.  The seasonal markers of cherry blossoms and falling leaves were introduced gradually by the generations of settlers pining for the old familiar markers of what they had left to become strangers in a strange land.

In meditating upon the theme of cherry blossoms blossoming in a distant city in a season far away from my autumn, I felt the isolation that my forebears must have felt yet also the ephemerality of all the illusions of comfort, ownership and permanence that we surround ourselves with.

In the act of writing the poem, I find my at-one-ness with cherry blossoms in a spirit of estrangement and non-attachment.”