The earth has many keys,
Where melody is not
Is the unknown peninsula.
Beauty is nature's fact.
But witness for her land,
And witness for her sea,
The cricket is her utmost
Of elegy to me.
butterflies orbit
in helter-skelter arcs,
but never bump.
butterfly on the jungle floor,
warmed by a shaft of light.
Walking beside the tree-peonies,
I saw a beetle
Whose wings were of black lacquer spotted with milk.
I would have caught it,
But it ran from me swiftly
And hid under the stone lotus
Which supports the Statue of Buddha.
Come slowly -- Eden!
Lips unused to Thee --
Bashful -- sip thy Jessamines --
As the fainting Bee --
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums --
Counts his nectars --
Enters -- and is lost in Balms.
lifelike bird sculpture
doesn’t fool the insect
that lands on its beak.
cliffside poppy:
bee shakily alights
in a mountain breeze.
seeking cicada
that drills my brain,
I find only a shell.
moth falls off wall,
pulls up erratically, &
struggles for altitude.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 