poetry

lens-artists challenge: it’s a small world

today’s heavenly gift
again is small…
billowing cloud ~Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

apple leaf Nikon 750 f/3.5 1/40s 40mm 100 ISO
egg’s reflection Nikon D750 f/5.6 .05s 40mm 100 ISO
breakfast Nikon 750 f/5.6 1/100s 40mm 200 ISO

micro images (AF-S micro nikkor 40mm) submitted in response to slow shutter speed’s lens-artists photo challenge.

be safe…be well…be sage.

fan 

Glazed silk, newly cut, smooth, glittering, white,
As white, as clear, even as frost and snow.
Perfectly fashioned into a fan,
Round, round, like the brilliant moon,
Treasured in my Lord's sleeve, taken out, put in—
Wave it, shake it, and a little wind flies from it.
How often I fear the Autumn Season's coming
And the fierce, cold wind which scatters the blazing heat.
Discarded, passed by, laid in a box alone;
Such a little time, and the thing of love cast off.
~Pan Chieh-Yü*
fan…Nikon D750 f5.6 1.60s 300mm 100 ISO

*cited: Trans: Florence Ayscough & Any Lowell The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fir-Flower Tablets

each at its own hour 

The grass does not refuse
To flourish in the spring wind;
The leaves are not angry
At falling through the autumn sky.
Who with whip or spur
Can urge the feet of Time?
The things of the world flourish and decay,
Each at its own hour. ~LiPo

Trans: Arthur Waley, The Poet Li Po II. 26. The Sun Gutenberg.org

Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/80s 150mm 100 ISO

“The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflections on the tropic sea were on his cheeks. The blotches ran well down the sides of his face and his hands had the deep crease scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert.” ~Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

the wandering one has forgotten home

Nikon D750 f/8 1/320s 28mm 100 ISO
On and on, always on and on
Away from you, parted by a life-parting. 
Going from one another ten thousand “li,”
Each in a different corner of the World.
The way between is difficult and long,
Face to face how shall we meet again?
The Tartar horse prefers the North wind,
The bird from Yüeh nests on the Southern branch.
Since we parted the time is already long,
Daily my clothes hang looser round my waist.
Floating clouds obscure the white sun,
The wandering one has quite forgotten home.
Thinking of you has made me suddenly old,
The months and years swiftly draw to their close.
I’ll put you out of my mind and forget for ever
And try with all my might to eat and thrive.*

*cited: Trans: Arthur Waley, Project Gutenberg A Hundred and Seventy Poems. Note: The above poem is from a series known as the Nineteen Pieces of Old Poetry. Some have been attributed to Mei Shēng (first century b.c.), and one to Fu I (first century a.d.).

Image and poem submitted in response to Travel with Intent’s Six Word Challenge

early morning readings

Nikon D750   f/4.5  1/400s 85mm  1400 ISO

“…is it the wish—the dreamlike, bombastic wish—to stand once again at that point in my life and be able to take a completely different direction than the one that has made me who I am now?

“There is something peculiar about this wish, it smacks of paradox and logical peculiarity. Because the one who wishes it—isn’t the one who, still untouched by the future, stands at the crossroads.  Instead, it is, the one marked by the future become past who wants to go back to the past, to revoke the irrevocable. And would he want to revoke it if he hadn’t suffered it. …it’s the absurd wish to go back behind myself in time and take myself—the one marked by events—along on this journey.”  ~P Mercier (Night Train to Lisbon, pp. 51-54)

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” ~ Heraclitus

When my heart came to rule
in the world of love,
it was freed
from both belief
and from disbelief.

On this journey,
I found the problem
to be myself.

When I went beyond myself,
the pathway finally opened. ~Mahsati Ganjavi     

initially posted in November, 2018


lens-artist’s photo challenge: found in the neighborhood

the neighborhood’s
relaxation spot…
the tree’s deep shade ~Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

hazy night–
people listening
to heavenly music ~Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

the mountain bees, too
yearn to live there…
town of people ~Issa (cited: haikuguy.com)

A historical journey through my neighborhood…images and haiku posted in response to this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge: Found in the Neighborhood.