The snow of yesterday
that fell like cherry petals
is water once again.
~Gozan*
*cited:
Japanese Death Poems
Yoel Hoffmann
In my secret heart
I give thanks
To my children
On a frosty night
~Issa*
For this week’s photo challenge, share your interpretation of “on the move.” You can be the subject of your image, or you might want to experiment with movement or transportation in a different way.
*cited
The Year of My Life
Trans: Oraga Haru
A writing stand,
paper, the moon…
riches
Sue
Riches — in Sue’s mind because set up to write poems. —
Aha, but will you catch the fishes (words) or not? — says Chiyo.
This imagery of fishes standing for words, especially fishes (words) that will not be caught (found) occurs in Buddhist literature and in Chinese poetry*
———
Visit The Daily Post to view additional images submitted for this week’s photo challenge: letters.
*cited:
http://www.ahapoetry.com/twamth1.htm
With Liquid Voice Unendingly
by Kago-no Chiyo-ni and Sue Jo.
Translated by Lenore Mayhew and William McNaughton in Modern Haiku, XIV:2, 1983.
In this world,
how can you know?
Soon enough you’ll be able
to ask that dark one
who judges the past.
~Izumi Shikibu*
For additional images submitted for this week’s photo challenge (monument) visit The Daily Post
*cited:
The Ink Dark Moon
Trans: Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani
Standing at the Threshold
With uncertainty, I question
What is it that I seek?
Who is it that I beckon?
A father? A mother? A sister? A brother? A companion? A child? A god?
An intentional presence that is drawn upon
A place and time of shadows, myths, and dreams?
Birthed within a family?
Matured within a relationship?
Nourished within a community?
Where the Stillness within Silence,
Affirms the exchange of life’s giving and taking,
Embraces the connection of life’s emotional threads, and
Observes the interdependence of life with non-judgmental awareness,
Yet, knows of a united oneness with another that can not be?
Since it can not be, do I yearn
To know integration through the formation of thought;
To see clarity through the flowing of ink; and
To feel completion through the act of creating?
And then, finally, within the stillness of silence,
I befriend
An internal companion with whom
There is an honoring of the who and what of which I am;
A woman, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother.
I touch
With reverence the presence of all that was, is, and will be.
I release
The seeking, the beckoning, the yearning to the Winds of Change.
I with uncertainty, Step over the Threshold
Foreseeing the return.*
*source
A Meditative Journey with Saldage
B Catherine Koeford
There was a man who was so disturbed by the sight of his own shadow and so displeased with his own footsteps that he determined to get rid of both. The method he hit upon was to run away from them.
So he got up and ran. But every time he put his foot down there was another step, while his shadow kept up with him without the slightest difficulty.
He attributed his failure to the fact that the was not running fast enough. So he ran faster and faster, without stropping, until he finally dropped dead.
He failed to realize that if he merely stepped into the shade, his shadow would vanish, and if he sat down and stayed still, there would be no more footsteps.*
*cited:
The Way of Chuang Tzu
Thomas Merton
The Road to Shu is Steep
…
The Road to Shu is steep, steep as climbing to the Sky!
It ashes those who only hear tell of it,
From its peaks to the sky can hardly be a foot:
The withers pines there have to lean over canyons
Filled with the contending dins of waterfalls,
Gullies thundering a thousand rolling stones!
Such perils, aye, as this,
Why, oh, why, Travellers from Afar, come ye to suffer them?
…
The Road to Shu is steep, steep as climbing to the Sky!
I have turn, but gaze West; with a long, long sigh!
~Li Po*
The streets of my childhood … the old Loveland, Monarch, Berthoud, and Rabbit Ear Passes which crisscross the majestic Rocky Mountains.
Visit the Daily Post at WordPress.com to view additional images submitted for this week’s photo challenge: street life
*source:
Li Po and Tu Fu
Trans: Arthur Cooper
Same Dream, Same Mirror
We have dreamt the same dream
during many unraveling autumns;
one joy, one worry binds us.
…
We put on faces
before the same mirror:
our small flight of swallows
is secure. We hear
inmortal music
on ancient bronze bells.
…
~Chen Yinke*
To view additional images submitted for this week’s photo challenge reflections visit The Daily Post At WordPress.com
*source:
Ancestral intelligence
Vera Schwarcz
sky dancing
kite, string, I – swaying
silent breeze
to view additional images submitted for this week’s photo challenge – perspective – visit The Daily Post at WordPress.com
from the shadow
of food offerings
the God of Wealth peeks out
~Issa

…We just find our selves here.
With our individual birth we just ‘wake up’ and discover ourselves in the midst of an extraordinary world of beauty and sorrow.
All around us we see exquisite and exquisitely subtle orders played out effortlessly. …it is all just here and we are just here to see it…*
a broad photo of angel-wing begonia blossoms placed with a coffee cup with a book making up the background.
various elements of each blossom interacting within as well as with the other blossoms
close up of an angel-wing begonia blossom
To view additional images submitted for this week’s theme – threes- visit The Daily Press at WordPress.com
*source:
The Mystery I’m Thankful for
Adam Frank
NPR, 12.22.2112
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