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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 ...

Monday, June 25, 2018

Flower Inside Flower (or Cherry blossoms lately seen)

Here it is only a day after I announced I wasn't going to write any more poems and already I'm backsliding.  Struggling with recovery ...  or something like that.  My excuse today is the photo my wife took of this Catalpa blossom that had fallen on our front lawn.  I looked and couldn't help but notice the scene of cherry blossoms that cried out to be seen by some passerby, and I couldn't help but oblige.


Flower inside flower
Scene inside scene
The Catalpa petal is but
A white canvas daubed
With pistil and pollen
As if by magic brush
Until cherry blossoms 
Can clearly be seen

花内花
景内景
上楸瓣
白画布
与雌蕊
像神笔
樱花看




Since I'm in recovery, I must keep my poetry furtive and brief.  Perhaps I'm just fooling myself with more excuses but I'm really considering this more a work of translation as opposed to being my own poem.  The image presented itself to me and in no way did I seek it out.  Moreover, I wrote the poem first in Chinese characters and then reverse engineered it into English so I feel justified in minimizing any active agency on my part.  It was simply something found right there on the lawn in front of me.

And let's not forget Bai Juyi who wrote the original version of this poem more than 1200 years ago ... he's the one who first started me on this path of seeing flowers everywhere, both within and without other flowers ...




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