tender moment from a Japanese master

A world without

the scattering of blossoms,

without the clouding

over of the moon, would deprive

me of my melancholy. 

- Saigyo

I like this poem for reminding me that my whole journey is nourishing.  It's not even that I find myself in a melancholy mood right now.  For me the power comes from the simple reminder that every passing cloud and shadow in my heart, as well as all the sunshine of joy, is a precious gift given to me.  It's the only life I have.  

child river summer

claims you in that sweet breeze...

the maples, not uprooted a sacred inch, are

        carrying you home.

those crowded thoughts

are rendered                  nowhere

in the wholeness of

a warm cradle solstice.

all these collected efforts are similarly empty

to the shadow tangibles

of ducks on the sky,

rocketing downstream

as a creatively simple braid

of eloquence.

our life is laughter and forgetting

        into the pickling tears of wiz-dumb,

speechlessly recalcitrant.

tonight left me Nothing

as the broadest gift conceivable

in the rhapsody of moon    

on rust

on shivering

  bright

   water.

drop spindle of june morning

it is not exactly joy

that brings me

softly through the barefoot pines

of a June dawn

it is perhaps the dew,

the awe of feathery grass clumps

under my rough arches,

the harsh press of 

acorn caps loving my whole journey

the sweet stolen moment

of solitude,

the vain attempt

to do the nothing work

of dissolving...

just an arc of breath

by the sycamore,

the slender black bird, hopping

on a dead branch

among the ribald orchestra of summer green.