love poems

Those sedges in light-flooded Naniwa —
you spoke as intimately as their clinging roots,
you said it would run deep into years, it would last long,
so I gave you my heart, as spotless
as a clear mirror.
From that day,
unlike the seaweed that sways with the waves,
I did not have a heart that goes this way and that,
I trusted as one trusts a great ship.
But has a god, a rock-smasher, put us apart?
Or someone of this world interfered?
You used to come but you no longer do,

TWO TANKA

I came to this spring field to pick violets. But I loved the field so much I've slept here all
night

Our sovereign familiar with the eight corners —
his eternal palace where we serve
in Saika Field — visible from its back
is an island in the offing. There on its clean shore
when the wind blows, white waves churn,
when the tide ebbs, lovely seaweed is harvested.
So noble since the age of gods,
that island mountain of Tamatsu!

ENVOYS

On the rocky shore of the island in the offing, the lovely seaweed — I will miss it when it
goes under the flowing tide

In vine-trailing Iwami's sea,
at uncertain Cape Kara,
deep-sea fleece grows on hidden rocks,
lovely seaweeds grow on the wild shore.
Like those lovely seaweeds, yielding, you slept with me,
deeply as deep-sea fleece I think of you,
but the nights we slept together were not many,
I came away, parting with you as trailing vines do.
My heart aches, center of my vitals,
longing, I turn around to look,
but on Mount Ferry of large ships
yellow leaves scatter, flutter so
I cannot see your sleeves clearly.

In boundless desire
lit by the fire of love
this night at least
may you tread the path of dreams
and no one blame us.

Since seeing in my sleep
the one whom I love,
it's these things
called dreams
I've learned to trust.

The plum blossoms
I thought to show
to you, my love,
cannot be told apart
from the falling snow.

That girl
lovely as the little oaks
of Mount Mikamo
in Shimotsukeno —
whose supper will she be fixing?

Look round our World; behold the chain of Love
Combining all below and all above.
See plastic Nature working to this end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See Matter next, with various life endu'd,
Press to one centre still, the gen'ral Good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving vegetate again:
All forms that perish other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)

Serve your God, who has come into this temple of life!
Do not act the part of a madman, for the night is thickening fast.
He has awaited me for countless ages, for love of me He has lost His heart:
Yet I did not know the bliss that was so near to me, for my love was not yet awake.
But now, my Lover has made known to me the meaning of the note that struck my ear:
Now, my good fortune is come.
Kabir says: " Behold! how great is my good fortune! I have received the unending caress of my Beloved! "