Short Poems

Old though I am
I still offer gifts—
these jewel tears—
to the year that greets me
and the year that departs

The mountain stream,
half frozen, half thawed—
its voice at daybreak
sobbing among the boulders

Kibune River—
the rocky waves of its rapids
tossing beads of spray,
like ice shattered in the
moonlight of an autumn night

The journey is a short one,
this separation I can bear,
but the old have no power
to hold back their tears

In this world,
so many moments of pain—
journeying through
plains of bamboo grass,
I met my loved one in a dream

In my grass hut
in night rain,
thinking of the past—
cuckoo of the mountain,
don't add to my tears!

The glowing moon
keeps circling on its course
above the clouds—
but cherries are what light
this world of ours

Cuckoo, what are you
doing to my heart?
in the moonlight from
a rift in the clouds,

As evening comes,
autumn wind from the meadows
strikes with a chill—
quails cry
in the village of Fukakusa

Spring comes to the lake, looking like a painting,
jumbled peaks circling the flat inlay of water.
Pines line the hill face, a thousand banks of emerald;
moon dots the heart of the waves, one round pearl.
Early rice plants poking up—nap of a blue felt carpet;
new rushes spreading over the water like green gauze skirts and sashes.
The fact I've yet to break away from Hangchow—
half is because I'm held here by this lake!