Today? Nah, for the monkeys in my brain are far from idle. Anytime soon? May well be, but still hard to imagine. Before I turn seventy? Shoo, silly old monkeys!

Addendum (May 6, 2016)

I came across this haiku on one of my random journeys through my writings, but I kept returning to it afterwards. I felt like commenting on it each and every time, but I gave up in the end. I can only hope that I will be more successful this time around. My liberation already behind me, this poem strikes me like something written either long time ago or by someone else. The only thing in the haiku that shows that I am wrong on both counts is the reference to my seventieth birthday, which took place less than a month ago. In a sense, the silly old monkeys were right, and this is reflected in the haiku written as my book about yoga was about to take its final shape (“Also Mischievous,” February 6, 2016). As it happened, this took place on the Chinese New Year’s Eve that ushered the Year of the Monkey. Although I do not wish to make too much of this coincidence, if this is what it is, the bridge between the two poems is pretty striking. No matter how mischievous were the monkeys in my brain so many months ago, they were still correct about my liberation. For they are also bright, full of pep, bursting with ideas, and nimble.