Who are you, reader, reading my poems my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring,
one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories
of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning,
sending its glad voice across an hundred years.
Hojoki: A Buddhist Reflection on Solitude: Imperfection and Transcendence – Bilingual English and Japanese Texts with Free Online Audio Recordings by Kamo no Chōmei
When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."
NOTE: This poem is sometimes called “Sonnet 19,” sometimes “On His Blindness,” and sometimes “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent.”
thin moon crescent
shines brightly on a
cold, winter night.
I remember rooms that have had their part
In the steady slowing down of the heart.
The room in Paris, the room at Geneva,
The little damp room with the seaweed smell,
And that ceaseless maddening sound of the tide --
Rooms where for good or for ill -- things died.
But there is the room where we (two) lie dead,
Though every morning we seem to wake and might just as well seem to sleep again
As we shall somewhere in the other quieter, dustier bed
Out there in the sun -- in the rain.
Butterfly shows off
its luminous blue wings
to hot pink flowers.
庭院深深：最美的宋詞英譯新詮 by 吳俁陽（賞析）
A small arc of sun
stands above the trees
Like the tufts of hair
that give away the
hiding boy who can’t
judge hairdo height.
The next time I turn around,
I see Sun -- fully out and
stalking up behind me,
looming larger.
Villain shows his indiscretion,
Villain's partner makes confession.
Juvenile, with golden tresses,
Finds her pa and dons long dresses.
Scapegrace comes home money-laden,
Hero comforts tearful maiden,
Soubrette marries loyal chappie,
Villain skips, and all are happy.
Infinite golden Buddhas
stretch along the path.
Each step occurs
in the presence of one
and the presence of all
and the presence of none --
simultaneously.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 