poetry

black & white sunday: natural

 

There are pauses between the showers of the outer world,

But there is no time when my sleeves, wet with tears, are dry.

                                                                                         ~Murasaki Shikibu*

black and white sunday natural

Lost in Translation’s theme for the Black and White Sunday is… natural

*cited:

Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan

Trans: A Omori & K Doi

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/omori/court/court.html

at last free…

At last free,

at last I am a woman free!

No more tied to the kitchen,

stained amid the stained pots,

no more bound to the husband

who thought me less

than the shade he wove with his hands.

No more anger, no more hunger,

I sit now in the shade of my own tree.

Meditating thus, I am happy, I am serene.

                                                                            ~Sumangalamata*

oldtownshadows 1

*”Sumangala’s Mother,” the wife of a maker of hats and shade-umbrellas, was a member of the earliest community of women followers of the Buddha.

cited:

Women in Praise of the Sacred

Ed: Jane Hirshfield

weekly photo challenge: work of art

OLD FORM

Did Chuang Chou dream

he was a butterfly,

Or the butterfly

that it was Chuang Chou?

In one body’s

metamorphoses,

All is present,

infinite virtue!

betweennessblog

You surely know

Fairlyland’s oceans

Were made again

a limpid brooklet,

Down at Green Gate

the melon gardener

Once used to be

Marquis of Tung-ling?

Wealth and honour

were always like this:

You strive and strive,

but what do you seek?

                            ~Li Po*

Visit Dailypost at WordPress.com to view additional images

submitted for this week’s photo challenge: Work of Art.

 

cited:

*Li Po and Tu Fu

Trans:Arthur Cooper