It is natural enough, in haiku as in other things, to take a look forward or backward at the beginning of a new century. That the three volumes under review do so according to the Western calendar, and not the traditional Japanese one set by the emperor's reign, is indicative of the interaction between the two cultures and the influence this has had on haiku.
Akito Arima (b. 1930) has enjoyed a distinguished career as a physicist. He has also been honored as a poet, an encouraging sign to those who have observed a separation, amounting almost to an opposition, between science and the arts in Western countries. But in the case of Arima, whose work culminated with a term as education minister, unity, rather than division, is to be found.
It is as a practicing scientist that he bids farewell to the century just ended in the haiku that gives this collection of his verse its title: