Spring’s arrival
brings lush, green grass;
livestock keeps it trim.
Spring Pasture [Haiku]
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Tag Archives: poem
“The Props assist the House” (729) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]
The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Augur and the Carpenter –
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life –
A Past of Plank and Nail
And slowness – then the scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul –
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Camouflage [Senryū]
tree, wrapped in vines,
shape broken & trunk hidden;
an attempt to blend?
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Lament 4 [感遇四] by Zhang Jiuling [张九龄] [w/ Audio]
South of Yangtze, stands of red tangerine
Can endure winter while remaining green.
Is it that the weather there is so warm?
No. Their nature 's to bear a winter storm.
What might well serve the joyful traveler
Will be loathsome peril to passengers.
Fate factors in chance and situation --
Not playing around in cyclic rotation.
You may cultivate crops however you please,
But should heed shade thrown by mountains & trees.
This is the fourth poem in 300 Tang Poems [唐诗三百首] and the final poem of a quartet that opens that collection. The original in Simplified Chinese is:
江南有丹橘， 经冬犹绿林；
岂伊地气暖？ 自有岁寒心。
可以荐嘉客， 奈何阻重深！
运命惟所遇， 循环不可寻。
徒言树桃李， 此木岂无阴？
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Day’s End [Haiku]
Dizzying [Haiku]
mountain trail:
kicked stone sails, then drops...
out of sight.
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“Romance” by Edgar Allan Poe [w/ Audio]
Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been—a most familiar bird—
Taught me my alphabet to say—
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child—with a most knowing eye.
Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings—
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away—forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.
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Empty Chairs [Free Verse]
I watch the chairs
That watch the ocean,
Wondering whether
Some passerby will take
A seat to admire
The turquoise water
& crashing surf.
No one does.
Tourist and local alike
Spill by in a rush to get
Through paradise to
Somewhere else --
Probably a cruddy
Hotel room or
Unloved job.
Of course, if someone
Did take a seat,
They might be run off
On the grounds that
These are proprietary
Chairs.
[That's just the petty world
In which we live;
Where a business will
Protect its space for
Exclusive use by
Nonexistent customers.]
One might suggest that
It's too hot to sit
And admire the ocean,
But by the time those chairs
Have cooled,
The view will be
Blackness.
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Hermitage [Haiku]
hermit climbs the hill:
clouds mask his ascent,
obscure the cavemouth.
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“Down By the Salley Gardens” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]
Down by the salley gardens
my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens
with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy,
as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish,
with her would not agree.
In a field by the river
my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder
she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy,
as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish,
and now am full of tears.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 