The Chital at the watering hole
Has one single simple goal:
To drink its fill and then to scat
Before being eaten by some big cat.
Chital [Lyric Poem]
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DAILY PHOTO: Scenes from Sundarbans
“On Dongting Lake: To Premier Zhang” [临洞庭上张丞相] by Meng Haoran [孟浩然] [w/ Audio]
The lake is glassy in August.
The air and sky are oh-so clear.
Vapor steams off of Yunmeng ponds,
Ripples lap at Yueyang's piers.
There're no boats to cross the water.
Shame! I couldn't emulate sages.
I sit and watch a fisherman
And envy his catch and his wages.
This is poem #124 in 300 Tang Poems [唐诗三百首.] Original Poem in Simplified Chinese:
八月湖水平， 涵虚混太清。
气蒸云梦泽， 波撼岳阳城。
欲济无舟楫， 端居耻圣明。
坐观垂钓者， 空有羡鱼情。
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PROMPT: Inaction
Daily writing prompt
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
The older I get, the more I find regret to be a sucker’s game. I was the me then that I was, wishing the me then was the me now is just a waste of angst. Learn and move. Learn and move. No regret.
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Blossom Pair [Haiku]
the last two blossoms on the mountain,
bump petals on a common stem.
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DAILY PHOTO: Stony Hill in Gudibanda
Sound & Silence [Haiku]
crisp leaves rattle in a gust,
but a chipmunk climbs in silence.
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Wen Fu 6 [文赋六] “Modes of Writing” by Lu Ji [陆机]
Poetry is poignant and ornate;
Essays are deep and content-centric.
Stele entries are true to the essence;
Paeans, moving and melancholic.
Inscriptions are concise and kindly;
Telltales have a logic and cadence.
Odes show great grace and refinement;
Op-eds are unrepressed and intense.
Music 's penetrating and stately;
Speeches must sparkle with cleverness.
Though there ever so many forms,
All thwart evil and allow release:
Expression, sans pride overweening,
With no waste of words or lost meaning.
Original in Simplified Chinese:
诗缘情而绮靡，赋体物而浏亮。
碑披文以相质，诔缠绵而凄怆。
铭博约而温润，箴顿挫而清壮。
颂优游以彬蔚，论精微而朗畅。
奏平彻以闲雅，说炜晔而谲诳。
虽区分之在兹，亦禁邪而制放。
要辞达而理举，故无取乎冗长。
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PROMPT: Nervous
All sorts of stuff — e.g. gabby strangers approaching me unexpectedly when I’m in a low mental energy state. But when I observe the sensation of that nervousness, without rumination or feeding of the feeling, it fades rapidly. As Twain [allegedly, but possibly never] said, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
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Battle Royale [Senryū]
insects unseen:
chaotic bird movement, a
bird battle royale?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 