The First Day of Fall

The first day of fall
Feels so very fateful
The light slightly askance
It's one of those days
On which you look and see
The crazy cat in an entirely
More munificent way
Less deviant and sinister
Yet clearly left leaning still
As she saunters across the lawn
We're somehow all free
No longer epigones of ourself
The Board of Editors collectively
Has looked and passed
Now it's time to decide
What to do about it

Autumn Thoughts (Bai Juyi and me)

  

Every day for the last two weeks, weather permitting, the blue jays have come to feast on the sunflowers, pecking away until they were all but stripped bare of seeds; and all the while the sunflowers held their ground unflinchingly, only yielding begrudgingly, like Prometheus chained to the rock.  Until today, wan and haggard, the sunflowers finally appear to be on the verge of collapse. 

There’s no longer any point in denying that the change of season is upon us.

So here to celebrate autumn’s arrival is my translation of a poem by Bai Juyi

Autumn Thoughts

Bai Juyi

The moon shines down

Upon the north chamber

Brightness fills the courtyard

Illuminating the steps

A cool breeze stirs

From the west

Now the green world prepares

For days and nights

Of decline and rest

The paulownia and willow

Will slowly diminish their shade

The orchids and lilies will swoon

Into the tangled undergrowth  

Such things warrant

Close personal study   

At least my heart

Is inclined that way

Contentment may endure

Even as strength declines

Everything rises and falls

In Heaven’s appointed sequence

Thus a lifetime passes

Like sparks emitted by a flint

Pleasure comes frequently

Even as the hardship returns

秋怀

 白居易

月出照北堂

光华满阶墀

凉风从西至

草木日夜衰

桐柳减绿阴

蕙兰消碧滋

感物私自念

我心亦如之

安得长少壮

盛衰迫天时

人生如石火

为乐常苦迟

*  *  *  *  *

With many thanks to my friend Steve Zhang for helping me better understand the last verse!

Two Questions Every Incubus-in-Training Ought to Consider

Here are two essay style questions that every incubus-in-training or bardo spirit should be prepared to answer prior to advancing to the next highest level or degree.

1.  Do you think the neighbors can see your incandescence any more clearly than a shadowy wraith or wisp of smoke or as any less grainy than the nightly news can be viewed from across the front lawn?

2.  How firm a grasp do you really have on your essential being, given that Self forever seems to be both revealing and concealed, protean and fleeting, much like a flickering flame?

Photo by Jim Clayton - @JimClayton05

By the Crooked River (by Du Fu)

The fall of one blossom

Diminishes spring

How much more sorrowful

This wind that

Strips the bough clean

And how I long  

For a blossom

More enduring 

To be inured to this pain

The wine stains my lips

By the river I see

The blue winged kingfisher

Perched in its nest

While above the burial mound

The stone Unicorn crouches

It takes only a delicate push

For us creatures

To know pleasure

What’s the use worrying

About good name

Given our stumbling ways

曲江

一片花飞减却春

风飘万点正愁人

且看欲尽花经眼

莫厌伤多酒入唇

江上小堂巢翡翠

花边高冢卧麒麟

细推物理须行乐

何用浮名绊此身