I remember the days
When dandelions
Entrusted with wishes
Danced above summer fields

I remember the days
When dandelions
Entrusted with wishes
Danced above summer fields

Morning and evening
I gazed at
incense smoke –
drifting,
remembering…

simply for all this
as if there was nothing else
early spring sunlight*

*unknown
Though we are parted,
I feel the sounds
of pine trees swaying
with the summer breeze …
on Casper Mountain Peak

Does that bird
think of past times
as it flies, singing
over the shade in the spring…
of weeping willows? ~unknown

See and realize
that this world
is not permanent.
Neither late nor early flowers
will remain.
~Ryokan*

*cited:
Sky Above, Great Wind
Trans: K Tanahashi
Through the years
I’ve become used to sorrow,
There was not one spring
I didn’t leave behind
the flowers.
~Izumi Shikibu*

*cited:
The Ink Dark Moon
Trans: J Hirshfield & M Aratani
Morning haze
jewels of rain, falling
in a dream



early morning reflection submitted in response to Leanne’s monochrome madness challenge
A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.
A voyager arrives, a map leads him there.
Or perhaps memory. Once long ago in the sun,
When snow first fell, riding this way
He felt joy, strong, without reason,
Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm
Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,
Of a train on the viaduct, a feast in motion.
He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I. ~Czeslaw Milosz*

*cited: Trans. Robert Haas. Poetry-Chaikhana.com Sacred Poetry from Around the World

submitted for Leanne’s Wednesday Monochrome Madness
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