Shades of Green [Haiku]

sunlit garden
to distant mountains —
every shade of green.

Ripples [Haiku]

through a window:
first ripples of a Spring rain
seen on a pond.

Green Hills [Lyric Poem]

So many hills I have seen
That grow so soft and thick and green.
Though jagged rocks sit down below
The grass and shrubs and weeds that grow
Through cracks and gaps, in mud patches --
Sprawling wide from tight-knit batches
That stone cannot constrain or kill.

Bald Mountain [Haiku]

Spring rains stalk up
behind a bald mountain;
a brown flood flows.

Ripple Chaos [Haiku]

raindrops ripple paddy water; 
wavelets wrap into grain stalks.

Mud [Haiku]

Spring rain for days:
grass is green & thick;
the mud, soft & thin.

“Inspired by Late Spring” by Ye Cai [w/ Audio]

Sparrows cast on my desk their shadows in pair,
And willow down falls in my inkstone here and there.
Sitting by the window, I read the Book of Change,
Not knowing when has Spring gone, I only feel strange.

Note: This is the joint translation of Xu Yuanchong and Xu Ming found in the Golden Treasury of Quatrains and Octaves (a Bilingual edition of 千家诗 “Thousands of Poems”) on which they collaborated (i.e. China Publishing Group: Beijing (2008) p. 40)

Cold Spring [Haiku]

cold Spring day:
feels too chilly
to be so green.

Temple Mural [Tanka]

a temple mural
shows monk and novice
admiring Fall leaves,
as I admire the mural -
surrounded by Spring green.

Cherubic Figurine [Haiku]

mountain forest trail:
cherubic figurine
cheers weary hikers.