Short Poems

In spring rain
a pretty girl
yawning.


Translated by Robert Hass

Your grasses up north are as blue as jade,
Our mulberries here curve green-threaded branches;
And at last you think of returning home,
Now when my heart is almost broken....
O breeze of the spring, since I dare not know you,
Why part the silk curtains by my bed?

The sky is silver-grey; the long
Slow waves caress the shore.--
On such a day as this I have been glad,
Who shall be glad no more.

I have invited our little seamstress to take her thread and needle and sew our two mouths together. I have asked the village blacksmith to forge golden chains to tie our ankles together. I have gathered all the gay ribbons in the world to wind around and around and around and around and around and around again around our two waists. I have arranged with the coiffeur for your hair to be made to grow into mine and my hair to be made to grow into yours.

2nd Lieut., Cinque Ports Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment
Strong, loyal--souled, full--hearted, blithely brave,
Only remembering love knows all he gave:
Beautiful be the stars above his grave.

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.

In love, aside from sipping the wine of timelessness,
nothing else exists.
There is no reason for living except for giving one's life.
I said, 'First I know you, then I die.'
He said, 'For the one who knows Me, there is no dying.'

In life I sought neither wealth nor power,
Nor ran after the pleasures of sense.
Moderate in food and drink,
I lived a controlled life,
And loved my God.

the zen photographer
travelled the world's four seasons
without his camera
when he returned home
he drew these nine pictures
we see here
he never left his village again