Dewdrops on a lotus leaf

How is my karma related to the brush and inkstone?
Over and over I write and write.
The only one who really knows the reason
Is the Great Hero Buddha.
The wind has settled, the blossoms have fallen;
Birds sing, the mountains grow dark–
This is the wondrous power of Buddhism.
My legacy–
What will it be?
Flowers in spring,
The cuckoo in summer,
And the [...]

Read Full Post »

And the smoke is briars

I alluded to this segment of Eliot’s “East Coker” the other day when I quoted Rowan Williams, and thought of posting it today. Ironically, Dogo Barry Graham beat me to it, but I shall post it anyway.
The wounded surgeon plies the steelThat questions the distempered part;Beneath the bleeding hands we feelThe sharp compassion of [...]

Read Full Post »

April is the LOLest month

And in honor of National Poetry Month, I present that vitally important 20th-century masterpiece, The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot…
In LOLspeek.
i seez cumean sybilsybil can has bukkit?sybil wantz DIE

1. IM IN UR WASTELAND BURYING UR DEAD
april hates u, makes lilacs, u no can has. (1)april in ur memoriez, making ur desire.spring rain in ur dull [...]

Read Full Post »

Yes, it’s April Fool’s Day

There are some great fooler posts out there from bloggers I love, but I’m not likely to join them. I’m still coughing too much to be funny. *insert grin here* But today is not just April Fool’s Day! It’s also the first day of National Poetry Month. Elegant Thorn Review has already mentioned [...]

Read Full Post »

See something beautiful, pass it on

Kerrdelune posted this today, when I am home with some sort of crud in my chest and no deep thoughts to share. With thanks to her, I pass it on to you:
Happiness
There’s just no accounting for happiness,or the way it turns up like a prodigalwho comes back to the dust at your feethaving squandered [...]

Read Full Post »

Salvation to all that will is nigh

Any day is a good day to quote John Donne, but today is the Annunciation,Lady Day in spring, which commemorates the visit of the angel Gabriel to Maryand the conception of Jesus. Herewith, Donne’s exquisite poem on the subject,from the sonnet sequence “La Corona”:Salvation to all that will is nigh ; That All, which [...]

Read Full Post »

In which I share a favorite poem

Wild Geeseby Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and [...]

Read Full Post »

I liked this poem better than the official one

The Velveteen Rabbi gave us a marvelous poem for the Inauguration. I confess to a weakness for Antarctic explorer metaphors.
As this cold day dawns you stand at the prow
gazing over the ice. It creaks and groans
but your sixth sense will tell us where the floes
will let us through. Terra incognita awaits
and bright sundogs gamboling [...]

Read Full Post »

Wendell Berry does it for me again

VII
by Wendell Berry

I would not have been a poet
except that I have been in love
alive in this mortal world,
or an essayist except that I
have been bewildered and afraid,
or a storyteller had I not heard
stories passing to me through the air,
or a writer at all except
I have been wakeful at night
and words have come to me
out [...]

Read Full Post »

Deep inside your own heart

It’s a pity, a gentleman in refined retirement composing poetry:
He models his work on the classic verse of China,
And his poems are elegant, full of fine phrases.
But if you don’t write of things deep inside your own heart,
What’s the use of churning out so many words?
–Ryoukan, translated by John Stevens
I’ve always been a good writer.  [...]

Read Full Post »