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Many thanks to Susan Saunders who hosted us for a wonderful week in Nova Scotia where this poem was written.  What inspired it was an apple tree growing in the middle of the backyard just outside our bedroom window. Now it turns out that apple trees grow all over Nova Scotia, literally with abandon and seemingly receiving little or no care, certainly without the benefit (or detriment) of any sprays, organic or otherwise, yet these trees from older root stocks nonetheless bear hearty and delicious fruit, showing no evidence of bugs or blight. How remarkable is that?

Late one afternoon

Just before sunset

We partook of the fruits

From the Tree of Life

In the bedroom overlooking

The apple tree in the backyard

Present prescient and reminiscent

 Became one and the same time

So all knowledge begins locally

Grows situationally and expands

Through further experience

As the entire cosmos

Comes into view

Starting from
A single bite

photo by Susan Saunders

As common a site as apple trees are in Nova Scotia, the one in our backyard was particularly comely, as you can see for yourself from Susan's great photo.  I had a chance to write a few more poems up there (including this one) which I will try to get around to posting in the next few days.

The Journey to the West

Though we journey to the West

We pray to the East

More or less that's the way

Each day begins and ends

It’s a tale everyone can comprehend

A cosmic frolic on the primal side

About an enlightened primate

Wielding a golden cudgel

A story two parts antic for every

One part pious with a dash

Of the discordant thrown in besides

So I am pleased to announce publication

Of Monkey King's complete adventures

In an all new verse translation

Which provides a full and accurate account

Of the development of Monkey Mind

It thus not only portrays Monkey's story
But your's as well as mine

Click here to order your copy of

The Adventures of Monkey King

Translated and retold by Joe Lamport

Ode to an Old Birch on the Edge of the Meadow

The old birch has lodged

Itself right between

The poplar and the willow

In its disposition

Towards life

Up and down to and fro

Maybe that's what makes

Its leaves tremble in the wind

Knowing how much there is

That can go wrong

And yet remaining open

To every possibility

In every wind

Its spinnaker

Billows out

Watercolor by M. Bridge

The poplar and willow are an important concept or symbol in Tang poetry and Daoist cosmology.  The pairing is significant (I believe) because the two trees represent the opposite forces of Yin and Yang at work in nature: the upwardly thrusting poplar tree being the embodiment of Yang energy and the yielding willow the embodiment of Yin.  

While enjoying the late afternoon sun in our backyard up in Nova Scotia for the last week, I noticed this beautiful old birch tree growing on the edge of the meadow and I realized it had achieved a perfect compromise between the two extremes of the poplar and willow.  Perhaps that's why the birch has always been one my favorite trees and I hope this poem serves as a proper tribute. 

A Blossom Falling on Water ( by Qi Ji)

The connection between silence and poetry runs deep.  This is a discovery that can be newly made every time one of us slows enough and settles on the mat.  What sometimes emerges from quiet contemplation is a meditative poem, as our thoughts gradually lose velocity and trend towards stillness.

Here's a fine example of a meditative poem by the Chan monk Qi Ji which was written in the late 9th century/early 10th century.   Instead of calling this a poem (诗) or using one of the many other standard Chinese synonyms for poetic writing, Qi Ji describes this piece with the phrase 书怀 which I have translated as words inscribed in the heart.  This strikes me as a very apt way to describe a poem that serves as a bridge leading us to a place where words no longer suffice.

Along the path to the forest temple

Words inscribed in the heart

There’s clamor enough

When a blossom

Falls on the water

In this remote place

Residing in faith

Night and day

Whoever comes to

This mountain temple

Can grasp it

If first they take

Broom in hand

To sweep pine needles

From the front gate

These are the matters

Which should remain

Unsaid except for the poem

Still unformed and

Wordless in your head

  

Rumor and innuendo

And good news

From the world

The countless desires

That burden us

Along with the cries

Of the forest apes

居道林寺书怀

齐己

花落水喧喧

端居信昼昏

谁来看山寺

自要扫松门

是事皆能讳

唯诗未懒言

传闻好时世

亦欲背啼猿

  

Ode to a Vestigial Context

From dust to dust
And from bit to bit
You know one day
Not so long ago
They used to give you
A paper receipt
At the grocery store
But now we are so
Much further adrift and
Manifest only virtually
As every day a little less
Gets affixed to the page

*  *  *  *  *  *

This poem is noteworthy in the means of its composition inasmuch as it represents one of the few times I have completely dispensed with the initial step of writing the words down in one of my little black notebooks (which for the last four or five years I have been in the habit of carrying everywhere around) and instead I wrote it on a handheld device as I was standing in line at the supermarket and posted it directly here to the blog.

The Newly Planted Pines (by Qi Ji)

This is a poem by the poet-monk Qi Ji who wrote in the late Tang period, as the dynasty was settling into terminal decline.  This is the first of his poems that I've translated so I don't yet have any idea of the range of his work.  But I like the simplicity and understatement of this poem and his thoughtful way of describing cultivation in terms of both the inner and outer landscape.

The Newly Planted Pines

By a field near where

The monks have taught

Things grow in accordance

With Buddha’s law

Luxuriantly sprouting forth

When disheveled then weeded

In a hundred years

A man grows old but 

It will take a millennium

For these pines to

Attain their full stature

Peaceful and proper

In a thick stand they grow

Among bamboo and rocks

The wild apes hiding

In the forest nearby

A day will come when they will

Cast thick shade behind

And when the autumn wind blows

They will sway like an ocean wave

新栽松

野僧教种法

苒苒出蓬蒿

百岁催人老

千年待尔高

静宜兼竹石

幽合近猿猱

他日成阴后

秋风吹海涛