poetry

shadows of squares -9

wabi-sabi … the beauty within the transition of summer’s fading light to autumn’s slumbering shadows

“We crossed it in a boat, and it is the Province of Sagami. The mountain range called Nishitomi is like folding screens with good pictures. On the left hand we saw a very beautiful beach with long-drawn curves of white waves. There was a place there called Moro-koshi-ga-Hara (Chinese Field) where sands are wonderfully white. Two or three days we journeyed along that shore. A man said: ‘In Summer pale and deep Japanese pinks bloom there and make the field like brocade. As it is Autumn now we cannot see them.’ But I saw some pinks scattered about blooming pitiably. They said: ‘It is funny that Japanese pinks are blooming in the Chinese field.'” *

*Trans: AS Omori and K Doi. The Sarashina Diary, AD 1009-1059 Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan

Visit The Life of B to join November’s Shadows of Squares

lens-artist: ephemeral

She with a cup of coffee, embraced within her chilled palms, both blanketed by the first light’s silence … her eyes looking, not seeing the eastern horizon’s slow transition from darkness to light. Suddenly, the sky’s canvas painted by the dance of the sun’s rays and clouds broke through her internal musings, “Wait, wait, please don’t move,” she pleaded as she began a search for her camera and trying so desperately, once again, to win her battle with … the moment by moment changes within life, the ephemeral nature of all that is…

across a concealed blue sky

aimless shifting stories...

gathering and dispersing – obscure particles

painting stories … anew,

moment by moment

Thank you Tina for the week’s lens-artist challenge: Ephemeral

lens-artist: dreamy

that village’s
floating bridge of dreams…
spring frost ~Issa

Ann Christine from Leya invites lens-artists to share their interpretation of the theme Dreamy. She introduces soft dreamy photographs as images created with soft light, soft focus, delicate tones, and other gentle aspects to produce an ethereal picture.

The dark sky dulls my dreamy mind, 
The down-dripping rain lingers– 
O my tears down falling, longing after thee!

~The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu

Thank you Ann Christine for this challenge…sometimes life’s realities need to slumber and awaken the gentle nature of dreamy.

lens-artists challenge: looking back – autumn

It stirs the soul

of even

the most

indifferent person –

first autumn winds ~Saigyo

Journeys with Johnbo takes us back to Patty’s June 2020 lens-artists photo challenge in which she invited artists “… join us … and share your images of this season.  What does autumn look like in your part of the world?  What does this season mean to you personally?” 

Images of autumn, 2020

autumn 2020
autumn 2020
autumn 2020

how I envy maple leafage

which turns beautiful

then falls ~Kagami Shikoo

autumn 2020
autumn 202
autumn 2020

What is it about autumn that is personal … the joy of a new school year, crunchy sounds of leaves, sights of leaves swirling with autumn winds, memories of burning leaves and jumping into piles of leaves, scents of autumn, promises of snow, desires to fly with geese, and feeling autumn’s unique dryness.

Li Po (A.D. 701-762)

III. 1. The Distant Parting

Fujifilm X-T4: f/16 1/10 s 80 mm 400 ISO

“Long ago there were two queens called Huang and Ying. And they stood on the shores of the Hsiao-hsiang, to the south of Lake Tung-t’ing. Their sorrow was deep as the waters of the Lake that go straight down a thousand miles. Dark clouds blackened the sun. Shōjō howled in the mist and ghosts whistled in the rain. The queens said, “Though we speak of it we cannot mend it. High Heaven is secretly afraid to shine on our loyalty. But the thunder crashes and bellows its anger, …

…

So the royal ladies wept, standing amid yellow clouds. Their tears followed the winds and waves, that never return. And while they wept, they looked out into the distance and saw the deep mountain of Tsang-wu.

“’The mountain of Tsang-wu shall fall and the waters of the Hsiang shall cease, sooner than the marks of our tears shall fade from these bamboo-leaves’.” ~Li Po*

*cited: trans: Arthur Waley, The Poet Li Po, The Project Gutenberg eBook