My friend Kan Nozaki's book Akachan Kyoiku (titled after the American film Bringing Up A Baby) received this year's Kodansha Prize for Essays along with Kazuya Fukuda. It's a lovely book telling the days of a middle-aged French lit prof with his new born son... full of joy, laughter, and discovery.
Not knowing how to congratulate him, I wrote three haikus that I sent him by e-mail. Here they are (in the original):
Infant Joy! 躍り秘めたる 土ふまず
この掌に降りておいで かかとの光
葉脈と指 いのちの脈絡 みどりご力（りょく）
Not bad, eh? Congratulations to Kan! (Whose name literally means JOY.)
