In this world
the living grow fewer,
the dead increase–
how much longer must I
carry this body of grief?
Ono no Komachi (J Hirshfield & M AratanI, The Ink Dark Moon)
Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/400s 300mm 200 ISO
Ono no Komachi
tanka
by my hand…
If only his horse
had been tamed
by my hand–
I’d have taught it
not to follow anyone else!
~Izumi Shikibu (J Hirshfield & M Arantani, The Ink Dark Moon)
Nikon D750 f/5.6 1/400s 112mm 640 ISO
Ono no Komachi
Tokiwa Mountain’s
pine trees are always green–
I wonder,
do they recognize autumn
in the sounds the blowing wind?
~Ono no Komachi (J Hirshfield & M Aratani, The Ink Dark Moon)
lens-artists challenge: path
Meeting on the path:
But I cannot clearly know
If it was he,
Because the midnight moon
In a cloud had disappeared
~ Lady Murasaki Shikibu
Image and tanka submitted response to the lens-artists challenge (Travels and Trifles): path
weekly photo challenge: strength
It is by its breath
That autumn’s leaves of trees and grass
Are wasted and driven.
So they call this mountain wind
The wild one, the destroyer.
~Fun’ya no Yasuhide
Nikon D750 f/4.5 1/400s 85mm 2200 ISO
the dawn is here…
In the summer night
The evening still seems present,
But the dawn is here.
To what region of the clouds
Has the wandering moon come home?
~Kiyohara no Fukayabu
Meditative photography with an iPad, John F Simon’s “Drawing your own Path,” a pair of reading glasses, a fountain pen, and the dawn. Edited in Lightroom CC.
watching the moon
Watching the moon
at dawn,
solitary, mid-day,
I knew myself completely,
no part left out.
~Izumi Shikibu (J Hirshfield & M Aratani, The Ink Dark Moon)
Ono no Komachi
While watching
the long rains falling on this world
my heart, too, fades
with the unseen color
of the spring flowers.
~Ono no Komachi (J Hirshfield & M Aratani, The Ink Dark Moon)
thoughts of you
Secretly
I would have you know,
With the mists of spring
Among the haze are
My thoughts of you
~Former Emperor Gosuzak (http://www.wakapoetry.net)
Nikon D750 f/11 1/3,200 52mm 800 ISO
Izumi Shikibu
Left behind
to grow old in this world
without you,
the flowers I pick lose their beauty,
dyed with dark ink.
~Izumi Shikibu (J Hirshfield & M Aratani, The Ink Dark Moon)
painting the moon
will you remember…
Clear waters unchanged
in a meadow
I saw once long ago,
will you remember
this face of mine?
~Saigyo (B Watson, Poems of a Mountain Home)
Nikon D750 f/4.5 1/3,200 85mm 800 ISO
shadows
What is it
about this twilight hour?
Even the sound
of a barely perceptible breeze
pierces the heart.
~Izumi Shikibu (J Hirshfield & M Aralani, The Ink Dark Moon)
a meditative journey 
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