Be kind and tender to the Frog, And do not call him names, As 'Slimy skin,' or 'Polly-wog,' Or likewise 'Ugly James,' Or 'Gape-a-grin, or 'Toad-gone-wrong,' Or 'Billy Bandy-knees': The Frog is justly sensitive To epithets like these. No animal will more repay A treatment kind and fair; At least so lonely people say Who keep a frog (and, by the way, They are extremely rare).
the foggy valley looks like a depthless painting through fall foliage.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant -- Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind --
dry and yellow, fall leaves hang on like a thick head of gray hair.
Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange:
Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Ding-dong!
Hark! Now I hear them,
Ding-dong, bell!
NOTE: From The Tempest Act 1: Scene 2
the sun is low,
but then it never gets high
this time of year.
ten seconds after a dead limb broke under it: poised to leap again.
Hundreds of cold sparrows dive into the empty courtyard, cluster on plum branches and speak of sun after rain at dusk. They choose to gather en masse and kill me with noise. Suddenly startled, they disperse. Then, soundlessness.
NOTE: This translation from: Barnstone, Tony & Chou Ping. 2005. The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry. New York: Random House. p.422.
So many cultures
make their dead
cross a river.
The Greeks' Styx.
The Hindus' Vaitarna.
The Norse Gjȍll.
The Gnostic's Hiṭpon.
The Japanese Sanzu-no-Kawa.
The Mesopotamians' Hubur.
Taoists cross Naihe Bridge --
over what (I'm not sure,
but) is probably a river.
No rest for the dead?
It seems kind of rude.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 