An unfamiliar horse --
Saddled but riderless --
Cautiously ambles
Into the village.
Its saddle, bags, and coat
Spattered in black --
Really, rust-red on brown.
The villagers want nothing
To do with it,
But each sneaks it food
And lets it water at their
Tank.
Crisis arises
From the depths
Of intended perfection --
"Intended" because all
We can ever do is
Aim & release.
It is more an act of luck
To hit the bullseye
Than to miss.
Bullseyes don't occur because
Of a lack of adverse forces
At work.
They occur because of some
Fortuitous balancing
Of adverse forces.
Trudging into lapping waves
On a dim and dusky eve.
Chest deep
One pops up, pressing one's chest
Onto the water,
And swims toward a distant
Silhouetted rock outcrop.
But it doesn't stay silhouetted.
Soon, one is heading into
A grand, black abyss,
There is no shape in this world,
Only the feel of limbs -- pulling & kicking.
Sounds grow ever more feeble --
And ever more rare --
Until the smell of seawater becomes
A bright and vivid sensory experience --
Layered & textured.
Rolling onto one's back, one can see
Patches of sparkling stars
In the cloud gaps.
One lays upon the waves --
Feeling as though one conforms to them
As one floats like a piece of driftwood --
And sees the twinkle of distant stars,
In a world too vast to understand.
Sun dips below the hill;
Light rises off the roof,
And the lowest clouds
Glow in salmon hues.
I thought:
The moon,
Shining upon the many steps of the palace before me,
Shines also upon the chequered rice-fields
Of my native land.
And my tears fell
Like white rice grains
At my feet.
Limestone lumps
Karst columns
Dot the waters,
Like ancient wreckage --
Wrack & ruin
Slung near & far
From coastal homelands;
A landscape torn asunder
And littered about,
But beloved for the beauty
Of its scraggy, weedy
Weathered rock.
A learned man came to me once.
He said, "I know the way, -- come."
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened.
Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of my feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, "I am lost."
Being thirsty,
I filled a cup with water,
And, behold! -- Fuji-yama lay upon the water,
Like a dropped leaf!
A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and
nothing strange a single hurt color and an
arrangement in a system to pointing. All
this and not ordinary, not unordered in not
resembling. The difference is spreading.
Lying back on the water,
Peering into a cloud,
I shift like driftwood --
rocking and rising,
rolling and dipping.
As I stare at the cloud,
It seems to stare back.
It drifts - suspiciously -
Or maybe I'm drifting
And it is still --
In truth, we're both drifting,
And neither of us has
The mental energy to be
Suspicious.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 