Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood.
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road.
Shot the lithe Sleds like Shod vibrations
Emphacized and gone
It is the Past's supreme italic
Makes the Present mean --
The moon sets; crows caw below frosty skies.
Boats, moored to maples -- lamps glow like cat eyes.
Cold Mountain Temple, outside Gusu's bounds:
The midnight bell cuts off soft water sounds.
The Short Story: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Kahn
When Daniel Boone goes by, at night,
The phantom deer arise
And all is lost, wild America
Is burning in their eyes.
Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble?
george bernard shaw, PygMalion
Refrain from talk of others’ shortcomings; don’t rest on your strengths.
Thousand Character classic [千字文]
[罔谈彼短; 靡恃己长.]
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
george bernard shaw, Man and superman
A child is the most reliable measure of time. His daily growth is proof of your daily ageing and decline. The child’s gains are your losses, and the closer a child gets to anything, the farther you withdraw, as though you were tied to one another on opposite spokes of a wheel and the wheel, without your noticing it, turns. Dawn for the child is dusk for you.
Otar chiladze, A Man was going down the road
We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
George bernard shaw, Pygmalion
Whate'er is Born of Mortal Birth
Must be consumed with the Earth
To rise from Generation free:
Then what have I to do with thee?
The Sexes sprung from Shame & Pride,
Blow'd in the morn; in evening died;
But Mercy chang'd Death to Sleep;
The Sexes rose to work & weep.
Thou, Mother of my Mortal part,
With cruelty didst mould my Heart,
And with false self-deceiving tears
Didst bind my Nostrils, Eyes, & Ears:
Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay,
And me to Mortal Life betray.
The Death of Jesus set me free:
Then what have I to do with thee?
The monk’s entire body is present
in this great circle.
Xutang’s true face and eye
emerge from it.
The blind singer’s love song delights
flowers for ten thousand springs.
Translation by Kazuaki Tanahashi and David Schneider in Essential Zen (1994) HarperSanFrancisco.
Away with funeral music -- set
The pipe to powerful lips --
The cup of life's for him that drinks
And not for him that sips.
Remove away that black'ning church:
Remove away that marriage hearse:
Remove away that man of blood:
You'll quite remove the ancient curse.
When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 