Ray Rasmussen

Here and Then

Commentary on Alan Peat’s “Sit Tibi Terra Levis“

Photo by Alla Kemelmakher on Unsplash

The British poet Alan Peat is well-known for his haiku- and tanka-related work; his honors include a Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun (2022) and first place in the British Haiku Society’s 2024 tanka contest. He is also the archivist for the British Haiku Society and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Historical Association in London. His passion for history and Japanese poetic forms meet in the following tanka prose.

Sit Tibi Terra Levis
by Alan Peat

We joke about being “top side” but, not so deep down, know that our levity is unwarranted. Beyond the vagaries of fashion, it’s our one constant—that’s what I’m thinking, right now as I think of you.

A game. Half a century ago. We start at the yew and fan out. The one who finds the oldest headstone wins.

Today. A book. Caesar’s De Bello Gallico. I am travelling through time again; happy for a moment in the here and then.

darting fish
silver hairs plucked
from a brush—
buds on a sapling
bulbs in the dirt

Originally published in contemporary haibun online 21.3.

Peat’s sparse yet complex prose covers various periods and settings. It opens at the burial of what appears to be an old friend, where public joking masks private grief. The second paragraph shifts to a childhood memory, a graveyard game he and his friend might have played together—what once felt playful now underscores aging and the erosion of a sense of carefreeness and invulnerability from his younger days.

The third paragraph moves to history, where the author is “travelling through time again; happy for a moment in the here and then.” He’s reading De Bello Gallico, which covers Rome’s expansion in the Gallic wars (58–50 BC) and eventual collapse. This broadens the haibun’s scope, inviting parallels between private mourning and collective angst and decline—perhaps even suggesting that the current civic and political strife among Western democracies mirrors Rome’s.

The tanka adds to this complex movement through time. Its opening images—“darting fish / silver hairs plucked / from a brush”—suggest restless anxiety about aging, loss, and political decline. The closing lines—“buds on a sapling / bulbs in the dirt”—offer solace derived from thoughts of future renewal and continuity. Together they echo Hokushi’s famous haiku written during the long period of war and civic unrest in the Edo period (1603-1868).
 

Ashes my burnt hut...
But wonderful the cherry
Blooming on my hill

         Hokushi (trans. Peter Beilenson)

Author and scholar Haruo Shirane has argued that effective haiku (to which I’d add tanka, tanka prose, and haibun) unite horizontal experience (the present, contemporary world) with vertical resonance (myth, culture, and history). The prose and tanka in Peat’s piece succeed on both axes. The vertical dimension is further deepened by the Latin title, Sit tibi terra levis—a traditional funerary blessing roughly translated as “May the earth lie lightly on you.” Appearing in numerous cultures in various forms, it provides a sense of something greater than the immediate scene at the burial site, connecting personal loss to faith’s offer of salvation. It also reinforces the piece’s movement between the “here and now” and “here and then.”

Peat’s tanka prose may challenge readers who are unaccustomed to allusive and connective complexity. But for those willing to engage with this level of layered craft, the rewards are many. I enjoyed several hours reading about Rome’s Gallic wars and the civic unrest that led to Rome’s fall, as well stepping out to learn about other historical parallels like Japan’s periods of war and civic unrest.

The greatest reward, though, is finding a personal resonance with the work—and for me, Peat’s piece resonated deeply. Celebrations of life and my own and my friends’ infirmities now arrive with increasing frequency. The political chaos of our times deeply troubles me. The tanka’s images of planting and renewal echo my own autumn ritual of pruning perennials and planting new bulbs. These small acts, along with their fruition in the spring sun, provide me with some spiritual solace.

For me, such solace is short lived, and my general malaise is aptly expressed in this haiku by Issa, also written during the Edo period:

        In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
        gazing at flowers.

	     Issa (trans. R. Hass)

The poet Adrienne Rich once wrote that poetry “is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.” Peat’s subtly polemic tanka prose should be enjoyed by all readers who expect poetry to show more than it tells and to ask more than it answers.

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Notes:

Hokushi’s poem is from Beilenson, Peter. A Little Treasury of Haiku, p.17, Avenel Books, New York. (This book can be downloaded as a PDF file from The Haiku Foundation’s Website.)

Shirane, Haruo. “Beyond the Haiku Moment,” originally published in Modern Haiku 30.1, Winter/Spring 2000. Available in the cho archives.

Issa’s poem is from The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, & Issa, edited by Robert Haas, p. 158, The Ecco Press, Hopewell, New Jersey.

Rich, Adrienne. Poetry and Commitment. W. W. Norton, 1987.

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About the Author

Ray Rasmussen has edited various haibun journals, and his work has been published widely. He lives with his partner Nancy in a mixed hardwood forest in Ontario, Canada. They enjoy reading aloud together, writing (him), fabric arts (her), photography, bicycling, canoeing and hiking. Ray’s haibun collection, Landmarks, is available on Amazon.com. His haibun blog is “All Things Haibun.”

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