To be an ever-better version of myself. It is relentless, requires engaging fears and weaknesses, and it is worth it.
PROMPT: Hardest
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“Broadminded” [Poetry Style #23 (旷达)] by Sikong Tu [w/ Audio]
One may live a century --
Short span though it may be:
Joys are bitterly brief
And sorrows are many.
You may take a wine jug
On your wisteria rounds:
See flowers grow to the eves
As sparse rains wet the grounds.
And when the wine is gone,
One strolls with cane and croons.
We become wizened with age;
South Mount, fair through countless moons.
NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry (二十四诗品.) It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a crude translation of the twenty-third of the twenty-four poems. This poem’s Chinese title is 旷达, which has been translated as: “Illumed” [Giles,] “Big-hearted and Expansive [Barnstone and Ping,] “Expansive,” and “Open-minded.”
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Rainy Autumn [Haiku]
the leaves are gone,
but the green of moss remains:
rainy autumn days.
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DAILY PHOTO: Autumn Glade
Young & Old [Kyōka]
roadside saplings
take Fall colors for a time,
before going bare;
the envy of humans:
at once young & old.
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PROMPT: Grown Up
Daily writing prompt
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
In retrospect, I’d say it was when I was on an airplane headed to Basic Military Training. I left a few days after completing high school classes, and a week or so before our graduation ceremony. That would definitely have been the point at which I had to realize whatever transpired, I was on my own. My problems were no longer distributed between myself and parents or myself and teachers, but it was all on me.
That said, I suspect that as a teenager I would have reported moments long before then, like my first solo out-of-state road-trip. I think a general feature of the adolescent condition is feeling grown up before one actually is in any real sense.
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“Stanzas for Music” by Lord Byron [w/ Audio]
There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep;
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.
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Cannonball Tree [Haiku]
the cannonball tree:
blooms bright & intricate,
but never delicate.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 