DAILY PHOTO: Night Parade
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Wetland [Haiku]
narrow channel,
waving reeds on each side,
boat glides blindly through.
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PROMPT: Weather
Partly cloudy.
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“Time to Rise” by Robert Louis Stevenson [w/ Audio]
A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon the window sill,
Cocked his shining eye and said:
"Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head?"
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Orbits [Haiku]
spherical blooms,
arrayed like planets,
bees zip through.
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DAILY PHOTO: A Green & Stony Hill, Mussoorie
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Jacaranda [Haiku]
Jacarandas bloom:
thousands of miles from home,
but no less purple.
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PROMPT: Influential Teacher
I’d say my first full-time martial arts teacher, because I was young enough to have considerable open domain in which said teacher could be influential and because the lessons were so diverse — from kinesthetics to ethics to culture to psychology.
By “most influential” I think one means having had either the broadest or most profound influence. (I favor the importance of the latter, the lessons that stick with one and which inform one’s philosophy of life.) This definition favors earlier teachers, but as I don’t remember any specific lesson taught by a specific elementary school teacher, they’re out (though I learned useful things from them and they ranged from competent to quite skilled as teachers go.) The earliest profound lesson I received through scholastic education, one that became a core tenet in my philosophy of life rather than just a skill, was in high school — and in my junior or senior year at that.
As with books, if I can take away one profound lesson from a teacher, I consider my experience well worth the time and energy. And most influential isn’t necessarily the prime criterion for a teacher — and certainly doesn’t necessarily mean best or most skilled or most in command of a diverse array of knowledge.
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“Night Travels” by Du Fu [w/ Audio]
Slender grass waves in a light breeze;
Tall-masted boat rocks in the night.
Stars hang low, over the vast plain;
The river moon struggles for height.
I'll never gain fame by the brush --
Too old for civil service posts...
Wading, wading, what am I like?
A sandpiper on the mud coast!
The original in Chinese (Title: 旅夜書懷):
細草微風岸，
危檣獨夜舟。
星垂平野闊，
月湧大江流。
名豈文章著，
官應老病休。
飄飄何所似，
天地一沙鷗。
This is Poem 113 of “Three Hundred Tang Poems,” i.e. 唐诗三百首
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Gust [Haiku]
gusting Spring winds:
can the hunkered crow
take to flight?
Tiger Riding for Beginners 