Fifty-Six Stones

FOREWARD The haiku is the best known Japanese poetic form both in and outside Japan. In Japan, anywhere from thirty thousand to three million people are said to write haiku, and the number seems to be increasing. Under-Secretary General (to the United Nations) Rafael M. Salas is publishing a selection of haikum he has written over the past two decades. Mr. Salas's haiku are more often the objective descriptions of the places he visited, of the people he met. And as executive director of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, Mr. Salas has visited many places and met many people. The result is a number of haiku that recall one of the original functions of haiku: complimenting the place, the host. So visiting Myoshinji Temple, in Kyoto, and meeting Roshi Yamada, he writes: ' Beneath a temple eave, Lone spider spins a web As the monk sits still' of finding himself in the Gobi Desert: 'Wood-fed fires in tents As cold Gobi winds seep in a bowl of horse milk' Or visiting Belgrade: 'One lilac blossom One faded red coffee cup A child's voice afar' Mr. Salas is also a man "in politics," as he says of himself, and as someone who has brought the pressing matter of population to our attention, he cannot fail to note what we human beings have done. He wrote the following while in Beijing: 'In Summer Palace Oriole's songs are heard again Hands of a billion men' "This collection of fifty-sox haiku is a fine travelogue of a fine public servant." Hiroaki Sato New York City