poetry

vulgar songs fill the days…

dandelionproject729bweb

Customs become diluted year after year.

Both the noble and the common decline.

The human mind grows fragile with time;

the ancestral way becomes fainter day by day.

Teachers can’t see past the name of their school;

students enable their teachers’ narrow-mindedness.

They are glued to each other,

unwilling to change.
…
Thornbushes grow around high halls,

fragrant flowers wither in the weeds.

Vulgar songs fill the days.

Who will expound the luminous teaching?

Ah, I, a humble one,

have encountered this era.

When a great house is about to crumble,

a stick cannot keep it from falling.

Unable to sleep on a clear night,

I toss in bed, …

~Ryokan, 1796-1816 (K Tanahashi, Sky Above, Great Wind)

black & white sunday: after and before

See and realize 

that this world

is not permanent.

Neither late nor early flowers

will remain.

~Ryokan (K Tanahashi: Sky Above, Great Wind)

beforeafterbbeforeaftera

An early summer morning in Poudre Canyon…submitted in response to Lost in Translation’s photo challenge

cache la poudre river

If someone asks

where I live,

say:

“The farthest end of

the heavenly river shore.”

~Ryokan (K Tanahashi, Sky Above Great Wind)

paudreriverweb

Cache la Poudre River

The headwaters of the Cache la Poudre River, also known as the Poudre River, are in the Front Range in Larimer County.  The river descends from the northern part of Rocky Mountain National Park through the Poudre Canyon before it meanders across the plains  of northeastern Colorado on it’s journey towards the South Platte River.

The name of the river (French for “Hide the Powder”) is a corruption of the original Cache a la Poudre or “cache of powder”.  It refers to an incident in the 1820s when French trappers, buried part of their gunpowder along the banks of the river during a snowstorm.

cited:  wikipedia

morning sky

Chat about the snow

on Fuji’s peak–

and summer is no more

~Sanjonishi Sanetaka (S Carter, Haiku before Haiku)
mindforest“When I look at the trees in front of me, my mind does not go outside of me into the forest, nor does it open a door to let the trees in. My mind fixes on the trees, but they are not a distant object. My mind and trees are one. The trees are only one of the miraculous manifestations of the mind.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh (The Sun My Heart)