the turning leaves
catch the morning sunlight
to show depths of red.
Red [Haiku]
2
Tag Archives: poem
Ripe Grass [Haiku]
heavy-headed grass sways:
the clockwork counting down
the days of Autumn.
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“The Builders” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [w/ Audio]
All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time,
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.
In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.
Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.
Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall tomorrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.
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Duck Drift [Haiku]
ducks drift lazily
on water that sparkles
with winter sunlight.
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“The Fly” by William Blake [w/ Audio]
Little fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.
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Ripples [Haiku]
“Gitanjali 35” by Rabindranath Tagore [w/ Audio]
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heave of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
NOTE: This poem is often entitled “Let My Country Awake,” particularly when it is anthologized independently of the larger Gitanjali poem.
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Holdout [Tanka]
a tree’s last blossom
seems to wait til no one
is looking to drop.
what a thing it must be
to see a holdout yield.
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“Seeking a Hermit-Sage in Vain” by Jia Dao [w/ Audio]
I question a local boy under a pine.
He says, "Teacher is gathering herbs
right here on the mountain...
But who can say where?
The mountain is thick with clouds."
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Faint Day Moon [Haiku]
a daytime half moon,
feeble compared to at night,
yet I stop to look.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 