the color blobs
cast onto floor & wall
by stained glass light
are brightest just before
the sun drops out of sight.
Low Light [Tanka]
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Category Archives: poem
“Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]
What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass.
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Quiet Valley [Haiku]
a quiet valley,
sheltered from the world:
flowers rivet monks.
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Under a Cloud [Lyric Poem]
To be under a cloud
Is not so sad a thing;
If you can love the rain,
And you can dance and sing.
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Ambiguous Living [Lyric Poem]
I am not now.
I was not then.
That makes it sound
Like I've never been.
But I once was
And will be again,
But who can know
Just where & when?
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“Love is Not All” (Sonnet XXX) by Edna St. Vincent Millay [w/ Audio]
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
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The Vine [Free Verse]
Grape leaves flutter
and some catch the light
to glow with translucence.
I'm in an ancient place,
and this is such an ancient
endeavor.
Wine has been the king
of pursuits in these parts
for millennia.
Is that why I can become
lost in the play of light
on quivering leaves?
Or is it just that time of day?
The sun is low -- ready to set --
My mind is slow & ready to drink.
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Stony Ground [Haiku]
from stony ground,
a dense cluster of yellow
grows defiantly.
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“Hand in Hand” by Su Shi [w/ Audio]
Hand in hand.
Plum petals floated to her skirt.
-- Love unbound --
Now, lost souls mill about:
Thier loved ones long unseen.
Old songs are heard once more,
Recalling Tower and Temple.
On ordinary days,
I'd write a thousand lines.
Now, I brush away dust,
And think of us, together.
The moon reflects in the lake.
Willows droop beside water.
A dragon-head cloud drifts on air.
Note: Translated titles vary. e.g. Xu Yuanchong entitles his translation “Song of Incense.”
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Ancient Landscape [Tanka]
ancient landscape:
boulders, remnants of mountains,
are strewn about;
prehistoric tribes lived here,
and it looked the same for them.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 