The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change in mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
“Dust of Snow” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]
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Wine Dance [Senryū]
the poet's wild dance
spills not a drop of wine,
but for down the throat.
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Mountain Miniature [Haiku]
a jutting rock chunk
imitates the mountains
across the valley.
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DAILY PHOTO: Kura River, Tbilisi
Five Wise Lines [June 2024]
The man who says to me, “Believe as I do, or God will damn thee,” will presently say, “Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate thee.”
Voltaire, in On superstition
The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Marcel proust
The translation of a poem having any depth ends by being one of two things: Either it is the expression of the translator, virtually a new poem, or it is as it were a photograph, as exact as possible, of one side of the statue.
Ezra pound
The people are of supreme importance to the ruler,
Chinese adage
food is of supreme importance to the people.
All translators face two choices: leave the reader in peace and drag the author closer, or leave the author in peace and drag the reader closer.
Friedrich schleiermacher (1768-1834)
[Referenced in Twenty-Nine GOODBYES, ed. by timothy billings]
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“Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley [w/ Audio]
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? --
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
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Backdrop [Haiku]
a snowy mountain.
a church, broad-shouldered & bright,
looks cold & bantam.
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DAILY PHOTO: Koxinga’s Shrine and Statue, Tainan
Red [Haiku]
“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” (254) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
"Hope" is the thing with feathers --
That perches in the soul --
And sings the tune without the words --
And never stops -- at all --
And sweetest -- in the Gale -- is heard --
And sore must be the storm --
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm --
I've heard it in the chillest land --
And on the strangest Sea --
Yet -- never -- in Extremity,
It asked a crumb -- of me.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 