how much

How much I desire!
Inside my little satchel,
the moon, and flowers

Bashō
(tr. Sam Hamill)



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unknowable

No, the human heart
Is unknowable.
But in my birthplace
The flowers still smell
The same as always.

Ki No Tsurayuki
(tr. Kenneth Rexroth)

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autumn palimpsest

why do you keep re-writing
the faces of what has already been,
layer upon layer of feverish scribble?
the past cannot be altered,
the stranger said, his amber voice
stern.

i stood there broken,
the quiet of the dead for my only flame.
oh if the sky could know of the loneliness
of its blue.

outside, the tree was gently falling
into autumn, unaware that it did so,
and why.

and how hard i wished for the time of the tree,
how hard.


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grief (1)

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