Short Poems

Time passes, just as a steamer's red belly moves by,
like a flare of sunset by a granary,
the beautiful ringing in a black cat's ear,
time passes, unnoticed, softly casting a shadow, it passes.
Time passes, just as a steamer's red belly moves by.

Even I myself cannot see my figure,
How can the lamp or the sail that reflects the lamp see it?
But I can clearly see the lamp and the sail.
Frozen and distant, I only circle in the darkness.

Don't tell me I'm proud of my brush and inkstone;
grown old, in a desolate room, I keep the blinds down.
Fish leap, kites fly, that's the way things should be;
plum scent and bamboo color my old acquaintances.
With sake, as with friends, I associate casually,
though with poems, as with mountains, I like things unique.
In life, in such things are found quiet and rest,
making me doubt that in heaven the moon waxes and wanes.

The brook sings on the selfsame strain
But finds no echo in my brain

And he like me is not too proud
To be the poet of the crowd

Nature says,
These craggy hills that front the dawn
Man-bearing granite of the North
Shall fiercer forms & races spawn
Charged with my genius forth

The simmering sap froths out at either end
From the green logs piled on to greet a friend
& warm the ale beside the christmass fire
& toast the cakes to sweeten each desire

Alas! in my old home,
Even flies sting men!

From pain and sorrow all around
There's no escape, I fear;
To mountain wilds should I retreat,
There also I should hear
The cry of hunted deer.

Give me the earth, and I might heap
A mountain from the plain;
Give me the waters of the deep,
I might their strength restrain;
But here a secret of the sod
Betrays the daintier hand of God.