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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 ...

Thursday, February 11, 2021

Ode to My Tinnitus


Oh tinnitus
Boon companion
Through all these years
Harbinger of headache
Sentinel of joy
How you dissipate
When I meditate
How you follow me
Walking along the shore

One of life's constants
Yet only a figment of
My perceptual apparatus
No less barometer of my soul
Coeval and coequally formed
An auditory shadow
That can never be ignored
Persistent and cloying
No one celebrates your arrival
Or will mourn when you're gone
Much as self-awareness itself
The atman and anatman
Together entwined 
Being an effect undeniable  
Still without discernible cause  

So pleased at last to encounter
Your mercurial nature
In slightly more fixed form

Marcelo Zissu's Brain




Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Singing Alone in the Mountains (by Bai Juyi)

Everyone has their habits
Mine is composing verse
Everything else has faded away
But this weakness alone 
Has stayed with me

Whenever I come across
A beautiful scene
I want to do right
As I would with friend or kin
To sing aloud or make note
About this encounter
With divine mystery

Whether I'm floating down river
Or resting half way up the mountain
When a new poem
Presents itself

Or alone on the path
Hiking up the eastern cliff
Resting my body
Against the white rock
That overlooks the precipice
And clinging to the branches
Of a laurel tree

My wild song
Shatters the peace
Of the ravine below
The birds and apes
All cry in response
Whether they're
Scared or laughing
I can't be sure

And the suddenly
The world seems
Uninhabited
As if I'm the last man
On the face of the earth






 


Friday, February 5, 2021

Four Poems by Rose Ausländer

 Plum Blossoms


Why do my people love the plum blossom?
My people are plum blossoms themselves

When winter storms with snow and ice
It brings forth the pink and white blossoms

When winter rages and road is forsaken
Undaunted, the blossoms forge ahead

Their tender leaves drunk with courage
Dance quietly to the wind that howls

It's more than luck, amidst the storm,
To show pluck against such mighty power

Seven told tales of the common folk
Sing praise of the plum blossom's quiet power

And wisely teach all seven tales
With iron fight but love gently

Or by the wisdom of the Chinese sages
From strength comes tenderness and
And from tenderness strength

When terror descends upon the earth
Such that all other blossoms hide in fright

Then you bloom in your still and quiet light
Bringing confidence to the world anew

















Mother Tongue

I have myself
Transformed into myself
From moment to moment

Into pieces splintered
Along the way of words

Mother tongue
Put me back together

A human mosaic


*******


Love (vi)


We will find ourselves
again in the lake
you as water
me as a lotus blossom

You will carry me
I will drink of you

We will belong to each other
for all to see

Even the stars
will be filled with wonder
how two here have been
transformed back
into a dream
of their choosing


*******


The Heart Unheard

I hear the heart unheard
In my breath
A clock made of air
The melody in the music box
Alive inside the temple
With muted tones
Like spinning spheres

Thursday, February 4, 2021

Standing Alone (by Du Fu)

High above a hawk soars
On the river a pair of white gulls
Windswept, squabble over their prey
So easy it seems to roam far away

The grass heavy laden with dew
Beaded still on the spider webs too
Heaven's mysteries feel close at hand
Amidst ten thousand worries
Alone I stand