Butterfly Sleeps Perched on the Temple Bell “butterfly sleeps perched on the temple bell until it rings” These lines are from a haiku by Buson on Hiroshige’s road to Tokaido in Japan. I love writing and reading haiku for its essence. I record a moment keenly observed. Ten words, three lines, seventeen syllables may, as perception of nature’s miracles, march to present time. I wonder at the way ideas of present time come to me to be written when old Japan is asleep in the sun on a windless day. Silent bell ringer starts the pull sequence without words. Then…