Spring Sleep (by Meng Hao Ran)

From spring sleep

I awake before dawn

To a world filled

With birdsong

A stormy night

Wind and rain I recall

But of ten thousand blossoms

I wonder how many have fallen

春曉

春眠不覺曉

處處聞啼鳥

夜來風雨聲

花落知多少

A very simple poem, a nursery rhyme really, written by Meng Hao Ran in the 8th century.  It's still one of the first poems recited by young Chinese students when they are learning to read.  Yet I can't think of any poem that better captures the wonder of spring awakening.

This morning brings an additional bounty.  It's April 16th and my taxes are paid for the year.  Soon Passover matzoh and Easter peeps will appear.  I thought peak magnolia season had already come and gone, but this morning I woke to discover that our magnolia tree has reached a previously unimaginable and even fuller state of bloom, with yet more blossoms open on the bough and even more petals strewn across the lawn.  How much longer can this go on?  I pinch myself because truly sometimes I wonder if I might not still be dreaming ....

photo by Marissa Bridge

Poem Written While Preparing to Pay Taxes

Destiny slices forward

Like a sloop in choppy water

But when she turns

She turns hard the other way

Another year has come

And gone with the paying

Of last year's tithes and taxes

Now with the wind square our back

We begin a new growing season

The sky a chalky gray

Earth still a blank slate

************

This has been a peak year for me (so far) when it comes to taxes.  It's not about how much money I'm paying in taxes.  Indeed, as my income has fallen precipitously in recent years, so too has my own tax burden. But this year is nonetheless a peak year for me as a taxpayer because I find myself in the midst of preparing to file five separate sets of returns -- more than double the rate of accountability from what I'm usually accustomed to.  This includes joint returns for me and my wife, another set for my younger son (no longer deductible but still he expects me to handle it for him), as well as another set for my mother (who no longer has the mental stamina to deal with it), another for our co-op building and still another set for a friend's estate that I'm responsible for administering.  So you can think of peak tax year as a function of being at a certain stage of life when you carry the responsibility for whatever property you have accumulated for yourself plus responsibility for a younger and older generation, as well as for friends of your own generation who have already passed on.  Whatever the sociological reasons for the phenomenon may happen to be, peak tax year has taken far too much of my attention the last two weeks and I am very much looking forward to April 16th!

Live Blogging on the Ferry

There is something
About crossing over
The Sound (or any sizable
Body of water for that matter)
On a ferry boat
A crossing over with Charon
Much like any other
A trip to the beyond
And just now
It feels like my battery
Is about to run out
So I have to make sure
I soon complete whatever
It is I have to say
In this poem or the next
Suddenly we're underway
And it's a beautiful day
Here on the upper deck
Either for hydroplaning
Or taking a header into the surf