“Illusion” by Amy Lowell [w/ Audio]

   Walking beside the tree-peonies,
I saw a beetle
Whose wings were of black lacquer spotted with milk.
I would have caught it,
But it ran from me swiftly
And hid under the stone lotus
Which supports the Statue of Buddha.

Stone Lotus [Tanka]

the stone lotus
carved in the temple wall
will outlast
lovers and real lotuses -
such a clumsy copy