Even into the mind always clouded with grief,
There is cast the reflection of the bright moon ~The Sarashina Diary (Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan)
image submitted in response to Patti’s lens-artists photo challenge: reflections
The hunting lanterns
on Mount Ogura have gone,
the deer are calling for their mates…
How easily I might sleep,
if only I didn’t share their fears.
~Ono no Komachi (cited: J Hirshfield & M Aratani, The Ink Dark Moon)
In the aging house,
crookedness of the door being straightened,
a spring-like winter day.
~Buson (Y Sawa & E Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson)
Walking on, walking on,
things wondered about — springtime,
where has it gone on too?
~Buson (Y Sawa & E Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson)
On the shortest path,
stepping through water to cross
in the summer rains.
~Buson (Y Sawa & E Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson)
No trail to follow
where the teacher has wandered off —
the end of autumn
~Buson (Y Sawa & E Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson)
and then… Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
An artistic journey through the seasons….a lens-artist’s challenge offered by Tina.
The last part of the Diary [Sarashina Diary] is concerned chiefly with accounts of pilgrimages and dreams. She married, who and when is not recorded, and bore children. Her husband dies, and with his death the spring of her life seems to have run down. Her last entry is very sad: “My people went to live elsewhere and I lived alone in my solitary home.” So we leave her “a beautiful, shy spirit whose life had known much sorrow.” ~Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan
Image and excerpt from Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan submitted in response to Traveling at Wits End’s photo challenge: the journey home.
You can learn about the pine only from the pine, or about the bamboo only from bamboo. When you see an object, you must leave your subjective pre-occupation with yourself; otherwise you impose yourself on the object, and do not learn. The object and yourself must become one, and from that feeling of oneness issues your poetry. However well phrased it may be, if your feeling is not natural—if the object and our self are separate—then your poetry is not true poetry but merely your subjective counterfeit. ~ Basho
“…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
In the autumn when words sound
like the echo of a stone ax,
some demon in me
wants to rise up and walk away.
~Baba Akiko (K Rexroth & I Atsumi, The Burning Heart)
Even water could not live on–
So lonesome is the mountain
Of the leaf-scattering stormy wind. ~The Sarashin Diary (Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan)
Visit Patti at P.A. Moed to join this week’s lens-artists photo challenge: splash
Nikon D750 f/5.6 1//400s 300mm 640 ISO
When spring escapes
freed from being huddled in winter’s sleep,
the birds that had been stilled
burst into song.
The buds that had been hidden
burst into flower.
The mountains are so thickly forested
that we cannot reach the flowers
and the flowers are so tangled with vines
that we cannot pick them.
When the maple leaves turn scarlet
on the autumn hills,
it is easy to gather them
and enjoy them.
We sigh over the green leaves
but leave them as they are.
That is my only regret–
so I prefer the autumn hills.
~Princess Nukada – 7th Century (K Rexroth I Atsumi, The Burning Heart*)
*note: Princess Nukada lived in the later half of the 7th Century. She was the daughter of Prince Kagami, wife and the favorite of Emperor Temmu.
I’ve traveled
that dark path to the world
which comes down from this mountain
just to see you
one last time.
~Izumi Shikibu (J Hirshfield & M Aratani, The Ink Dark Moon)
Interstate I-70 Western Colorado… Nikon D750 f/7.1 1/800s 85mm 100 ISO
looking at the mountain
looking at the sea…
autumn evening
~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)
Nikon D750 f/4.5 1/400s 58mm 250 ISO
None calls upon me, or remembers me in my mountain village.
On the reeds by the thin hedge, the Autumn winds are sighing.
~The Sarashina Diary, A.D. 1009-1059 (Diaries of Old Japan)
You must be logged in to post a comment.