a drunk staggers
around the corner, and stares
into the full moon.
Full Moon [Senryū]
Reply
It's as if ones gone mining --
From lead, silver refining.
That's how one cleanses a heart:
With pure love, not pining.
Like a pond from Spring rainfall:
Mirror to heavens and all,
Without defect of image --
True as the moon's bright, white ball.
Stargazing across night skies;
Singing songs of hermits, wise;
The water flowing today
Will know that bright moonrise.
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. 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 seventh of the twenty-four poems. This poem’s Chinese title is 洗炼, and it has been variously entitled: “Clean,” “Refining,” and “Wash — Smelt.”

a bright moon
casts a pale glow,
& deep shadows.

Slowly, silently, the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

in the darkness
beyond the big city lights,
a moon looms.

a daytime half moon,
feeble compared to at night,
yet I stop to look.
White in the moon the long road lies,
The moon stands blank above;
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.
Still hangs the hedge without a gust,
Still, still the shadows stay:
My feet upon the moonlit dust
Pursue the ceaseless way.
The world is round, so travellers tell,
And straight though reach the track,
Trudge on, trudge on, 'twill all be well,
The way will guide one back.
But ere the circle homeward hies,
Far, far must it remove:
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love.
NOTE: This poem is sometimes titled by its first line or an abbreviated form, thereof. So, it’s sometimes called: “White in the Moon the Long Road Lies.”