Cherubic Figurine [Haiku]

mountain forest trail:
cherubic figurine
cheers weary hikers.

“In Search of the Taoist, Chang” [寻南溪常道士] by Liu Changqing 刘长卿

I walk the narrow path,
Clogs divoting the moss.
White clouds over the shore;
Gate obscured by Spring grass.
Post-rain, I see the pines,
Follow stream to its source.
Flower-mind, then Zen Mind --
Arrived! Words have no force.

This is poem #136 of the 300 Tang Poems [唐诗三百首.] The original in Simplified Chinese goes:

一路经行处, 莓苔见屐痕。
白云依静渚, 春草闭闲门。
过雨看松色, 随山到水源。
溪花与禅意, 相对亦忘言。

Innercity Magpie [Haiku]

sidewalk amblers
pass within inches
of unruffled magpie.

The Flower That Reaches [Senryū]

Hibiscus
reaches for pollen; though
pollen is nomadic.

“Limits” by Ralph Waldo Emerson [w/ Audio]

Who knows this or that?
Hark in the wall to the rat:
Since the world was, he has gnawed;
Of his wisdom, of his fraud
What dost thou know?
In the wretched little beast
Is life and heart,
Child and parent,
Not without relation
To fruitful field and sun and moon.
What art thou? His wicked eye
Is cruel to thy cruelty.

Bell Pavilion [Haiku]

Summer night: 
bell pavilion - silent,
but for cricket chirp.

“Crossing 16” by Rabindranath Tagore [w/ Audio]

You came to my door in the dawn and sang; 
it angered me to be awakened from sleep,
and you went away unheeded.
You came in the noon and asked for water;
it vexed me in my work,
and you were sent away with reproaches.
You came in the evening with your flaming torches.
You seemed to me like a terror and I shut my door.
Now in the midnight I sit alone in my lampless room
and call you back whom I turned away in insult.

Urban Oasis [Haiku]

stream cascade:
soft water burble drowns out
the city’s noise.

“The Lion” by Hilaire Belloc [w/ Audio]

The Lion, the Lion, he dwells in the Waste,
He has a big head and a very small waist;
But his shoulders are stark, and his jaws they are grim,
And a good little child will not play with him.

The Common Hoopoe [Lyric Poem]

Let me introduce the Common Hoopoe:
It can raise its crown when it wants to.
With me, it didn't (as you may have guessed;)
I suppose it was just unimpressed.