Tanka River

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Yesterday I posted "Grove" in the poetry section. Then I saw how Larry Robinson has an ongoing poetry thread where he posts roughly a poem a day. I like that approach. So "Tanka River" will follow the same approach, regularly posting Tanka here at Wacco.

Tanka is the most widespread form of Japanese poetry. It is also the oldest with a written history of at least 1,300 years. (To compare, the sonnet has a history of about 800 years.) Over this long period of time the Tanka has maintained its formal structure which is five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables, 31 syllables in all.

In recent decades some westerners have become interested in Tanka. I've been writing Tanka now for quite a few years and perhaps others will enjoy what this ancient form has to offer.

Yesterday I posted:

Grove

The grove of redwoods,
Silent, an ancient stillness,
Soothing and serene;
I once saw a goddess there,
Eyes of night and starlight hair.


Today's Tanka:


Quiet Night

On this quiet night,
A night of many spirits,
Hours before the dawn,
There are voices in the wind
And songs sung among the stars.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Thanks to the encouraging responses from those who expressed their appreciation. Today's Tanka:


Shifting Sand

Countless ages past,
On this beach of shifting sand
Great mountains once stood.
I can barely remember
The reasons for our parting.


Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Nectar

That first cup of tea
On frosty winter mornings,
When it is still dark,
Feels like a transfusion
Or the nectar of the gods.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Five years ago George Bush announced that the U.S. would attack Iraq, a country that was no threat to the U.S. or to any U.S. interests, in an act of gross and murderous belligerance.

Threnody for Baghdad

Sleepless in my room,
The sound of constant thunder
And a ceaseless wind;
Even the stars are weeping
As vengeance consumes the sky.



Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Thanks again for all the support. Here's the Tanka for today:


Shadows

Cold gray-sky morning,
The sun remains cloud hidden,
An extended dawn
A shadow among shadows
I walk softly through the house.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Decades ago I lived in Alaska for 6 or 7 years. Here's a Tanka based on that experience:


Tundra Wind

All across the sky
Aurora Borealis
And the tundra wind
And the endless tundra night
And the beating of my heart.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

That was a beautiful full moon the last few nights. Observing the moon, I came up with this tanka:


Hidden Moon

It's not so often
That I get to see the moon,
Clouds come in too soon,
Or the city lights consume
The splendor of the nightscape.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

A Tanka for today:


Conifers

Standing on this bluff,
Gazing past the conifers
To sunset streaked clouds;
I number the days gone by
Since we last saw each other.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Forest Walk

Millions of years pass,
And that's a very long time,
I find it sublime --
A forest walk with a friend,
Without words, without an end.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Fossil

The Spring Equinox;
The Plum blossoms have fallen
Onto the damp ground
Footsteps leave an impression,
A fossil for the future.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Been away for a bit. Back to Tanka River:


Jade

The old maple tree
(I don't know who planted it)
Stands in my backyard.
In the wind, spring leaves flutter;
Morning light, shimmering jade.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Unstable

This nation will pass.
It's unsafe and unstable.
It has no substance.
Like the wind one cannot grasp,
Even cherry blossoms fall.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

When I'm unable to contact the muse, I will enter into a dialogue with another poet. The process is to start with a haiku written by another poet, and then add the concluding two lines of a Tanka to the Haiku. Haiku are written in 5-7-5 syllables, and Tanka are written in 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. So from a syllabic perspective, one can transform a Haiku into a Tanka by adding the two concluding lines.

This approach helps me to remain flexible, pulls me out of artistic ruts, and acquaints me with how other poets see the world and work with words. One of my favorites for this approach is the Haiku Poet Buson. Here is an example:


Dialogue With Buson


The faint candle flame
Used to light one more candle --
Spring twilight lingers (Buson)

As she straightens the picture
Of her mother's grandmother (DJ)


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Interest in Tanka in the English language world is very recent. As far as I've been able to discover, the first person to write a significant body of work in Tanka form in English was Neal Henry Lawrenece. He was born in Tennessee in 1908 and received an MBA from Harvard in 1929. In 1960 he became a Catholic Priest and Benedictine Monk and went to Japan to teach and assist the Catholic community in that country. It was while he was in Japan that he encountered Tanka. And he took to it with great enthusiasm. He published three books of Tanka in his lifetime; "Soul's Inner Sparkle" in 1978, "Rushing Amid Tears" in 1983, and "Shining Moments" in 1993. He died on November 3, 2004.

Of the three collections of Tanka, "Shining Moments" is still in print. Father Lawrence showed that it was possible to adapt the Tanka form to the English language. His Tanka cover an astonishingly wide range of subjects; including naturescapes, laudatory verse, political observations (he was a peace activist), and acute observations on everyday life. All English language Tanka poets owe him a debt of gratitude. Here is one of his Tanka from "Shining Moments":

Flurries of blossoms
Danced across the sunny path;
Their last dance of spring
So happy and light-hearted
On their way to non-being.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

A Tanka for today:


Tides

I like the cold nights,
The more so when there's no moon,
No clouds in the sky.
The whole planet seems to drift,
Floating on galactic tides.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

White Lily

"What kind of flower
Pulls us into the future
And offers us hope?"
She turned away, hid her face,
And softy spoke, "White lily."


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

If I were to pick a single volume of English language haiku to take with me, say on a retreat, I would select "Haiku: This Other World" by Richard Wright. Wright, the author of "Black Boy", "Native Son", and many other well-known works, spent the last years of his life in France. There he kept a notebook in which he wrote his haiku. In 1960 he selected 817 for publication. I think they are the finest collection of English language haiku yet written. Clear, idiomatic, simple, direct. I like to enter into "Dialogues" with Wright's haiku in the manner I discussed in a previous post on Buson. Here is an example of a Dialogue with Richard Wright:

Midnight is striking
In a cold drizzle of rain
Two men are parting. (RW)

Jupiter conjunct Saturn
Above the highway off ramp. (DJ)

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

My Uncle's Lament

"I do not feel well" --
This happens more often now,
Since the surgery.
A river in fierce full flood
Drags whole forests to the sea.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Kitten

She is such a tease,
That fluttering butterfly,
Just beyond the reach
Of the kitten's frantic paws
And darting, razor-sharp claws.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

I was able to find a used copy of Neal Henry Lawrence's first published book of Tanka, "Soul's Inner Sparkle". I particularly enjoyed this Tanka on love:


Tread softly my love
The night is clothed in moonlight
With breezes gentle
All the harshness of the day
Is forgotten when you come.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

A Tanka for today.


Entering the Real

There's a place I go,
I visit it in my dreams.
I am at peace there.
I confess it feels more real
Than this daylight world of strife.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

A few years ago I went on a retreat at a hermitage that is located in a high valley. It was January and it was cold, but it was a wonderful retreat which continues to nourish me.

Solitude

January cold
The sound of frost melting
As the sun rises
And touches the one window
Of my hidden hermitage

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Here's a Tanka by the poet Sam Hamill, from his book "A Dragon in the Clouds":

A car on the road,
The noise of growing cities --
Even one small bird
Returns the human spirit
To ancient joys and pities.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

One day I reluctantly decided that a shirt of mine was no longer wearable --

I loved that old shirt.
I had it for 15 years.
It fit like a glove.
I tore it into rags today.
Soon, someone will spread my ashes.

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

I wrote this following the breakup of a friends' relationship of many years:

Love is a strange thing.
At first it offers us wings
And then it clips them.
What follows is the sharp sting
That only love's absence brings.

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:


A Dialogue with Richard Wright:

Naked to the sky
A village without a name
In the setting sun (RW)

Preparing for confession
He recalls his many sins (DJ)


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Sometimes after work I'll take a walk in the park near where I work. This happened the other day:

Sleeping in the park,
The old man with a notebook
In the oak tree's shade;
A half hour before it's dark
He wakes up and writes something.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Love is one of the central themes for Tanka poets. In the oldest collections several chapters are devoted to the topic of love. In general, love in the classic collections focuses on three aspects; the initial meeting and its intensity, the fading of love, and parting. Here is a Tanka I recently wrote on the theme of love:

Do you remember?
In the corner of the park
We shared our first kiss,
The moon was of September,
Shining through the swirling mist.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

A reader by the name of Dian, sent me the following haiku:

Spider caught between
Winter's double windowpane
Neither house nor rain

I capped it with these lines:

She will spend the night at home
She'd rather be left alone

Together the dialogue reads:

Spider caught between
Winter's double windowpane
Neither house nor rain (DH)

She will spend the night at home
She'd rather be left alone (DJ)


If others want to send haiku for dialogue, please feel free.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

I believe that the earliest anthology of English Tanka is the book called "Wind Five Folded" edited by Jane and Werner Reichhold who live in Gualala. Jane was pivotal in introducing Tanka to the west. Here is a Tanka from that anthology by George Knox:

Red-tailed hawk flying
From tree to tree for days now
Making such shrill cries . . .
I'm hearing it in my dreams
And I read they mate for life


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

A poetic topic that is common in East Asia is the Death Poem; not just a poem about death, but a poem about how one feels about one's own death. There is even a collection of such poems called "Japanese Death Poems". It is a good thing to contemplate one's own passing; it puts things in perspective and is a ground for equanimity. I wrote the following Tanka in that tradition:

It is time to die.
It is time for endless rest.
I have no regrets.
Mountains vanish into dust.
Galaxies dance in the void.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

The Book of Psalms is one of the spiritual resources I contemplate on a daily basis. It always has something to say to me and teach me:

In the deep of night
I open the Book of Psalms
And recall the light
That dwells in all living beings,
Even in my troubled heart.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

I've been contemplating the effects of so many people suffering the consequences of the subprime loan ripoff, losing their homes, falling into debt. As I was thinking about this the following Tanka appeared in my mind:

Tossing and turning,
Nightmares of indebtedness,
One more sleepless night
As the darkness seems to slip
Through the tightly drawn curtains.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Tanka can be humorous. There is a rich vein of humorous Tanka, some of it is earthy, some are puns or quips. Here's an example of a humorous Tanka:

There, on Cold Mountain
I long for my hermitage,
Just the clouds and cliffs.
But where would I get my food?
And what about the doctor?

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

When I think of old friends and loved ones I find that I usually bring to mind small episodes, little gestures, that somehow sum up my feelings for that person:


We stood together
On the night when we first met
While we were talking
Your reached out, you touched my arm,
A touch I'll never forget.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

There's an experience that sometimes appears during meditation, and sometimes spontaneously, of expansiveness, serenity; it is a sense of transcending time, a sense of the presence of eternity:

I sat down one day
By the banks of the river,
I had meant to stay
Just an hour, maybe a day,
Now eons have passed away.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

There is wonderful work being done by poets in the Tanka form. I recently discovered a collection of 100 Tanka done by Christiana Rodgers. It is called "Twilight Sunrise" and I'm enjoying it. Rodgers strikes a different tone than I am used to in most Tanka. Her vocabulary is contemporary, very natural, but also clipped; almost like what one would encounter in a newspaper or magazine. Many of her Tanka are "slice of life", that is to say brief scenes, without comment, from her life. She also has, at times, a gift for paradox; hence the title of the her collection. Here is one I like:

Grief appears wisely
In another's eyes; in mine,
It is tragedy.
My face is tempered by pain,
And tuned to the absolute.

I like the way the Tanka turns and opens up at the end, in the last line. Here's one of her humorous Tanka:

I think to myself
'A lion is at my door!'
I see his blue eyes,
Pink gums, long teeth like missiles --
Incoming Siamese cat.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Another Dialogue with Richard Wright:

Spring dawn is glinting
On a dew-wet garbage can
In a city street RW

A feral cat licks its paws,
A merchant opens his shop DJ


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

I'm going on vacation. I'll return the week of July 21st.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

I had my birthday a few days ago. Time seems to move faster as I get older, something I have noticed for a number of years.

Days go by so fast
Even years vanish like sparks
Absorbed by the night.
When was it that we last talked?
Where can I find last night's dream?

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

A Dialogue with Richard Wright:

That road is empty,
The one leading into the hills
In autumn twilight (RW)

Utterly still bare branches
Darker than the fading sky (DJ)


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Recently I visited Santa Cruz:

Fog is descending
After twenty-five minutes
Of clear skies and sun
The coast reclaims its blanket
Of steady and cool dampness.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

The development of Print on Demand technology has allowed poets who are not famous, or who have not developed a following, to publish their poems without incurring a huge expense. There is a lot of Tanka being published through these Print on Demand publishers and for the most part these poets are not part of Tanka organizations or participants in Tanka magazines. I reviewed one such publication above, "Twilight Sunrise", by Christiana Rogers. Another one is called "The Calligraphy of Clouds" by Yeshaya Rotbard. I much enjoyed this collection. It is very distinctive, having a unique voice.

For one thing, the author titles many of the haiku and all of the tanka in the book. This is unusual, and from personal experience, such titling would be rejected in mainstream tanka and haiku publications. If you go to a Haiku or Tanka website they'll tell you that these forms of poetry do not have a title. But I think Rotbard is simply using part of the traditional English verse, the norms of English poetry. Most English language poetry has titles, and he is just adapting that norm, folding it into E-haiku and E-Tanka (the 'E' stands for "English").

Another aspect of Rotbard's book is what I call a "staccato" approach to his poetry. This also applys to Rogers, and much of the Print on Demand Tanka poetry I've read. The esthetic advocated by Haiku and Tanka organizations is one of continuous flow, an uninterrupted breath. The approach of Rotbard and Rogers seems more based on ordinary usage, less literary, more rooted in everyday speech such as one hears in quick conversations, read in newspapers, and popular song lyrics. At times each line is self-contained and the overall picture is gleaned from the combination of images.

There is one American poet who was famous for this approach: Charles Bukowski. I'm not saying that Rotbard or Rogers are consciously emulating Bukowski, but my sense is that this staccato approach is a naturally contemporary usage of modern English, found in many poets.

Rotbard's Tanka are, for the most part, personal observations. Sometimes he is humorous:

Lazy

My chin is jutting
as is my paunch. I should be --
running -- round the block.
But I'd just as soon sit here,
watch the clouds roll round the sky.

Usually he is more contemplative:

The Open Book

The sacred script lines
a landscape of white parchment,
like bare winter trees
line a landscape steeped in snow.
They are both scrolls to be read.

Parting

No bird sings, pre-dawn,
all the harbor lights, still on,
you enter the boat,
sound of oars, soft, in water,
you drift away in the dark.

Notice how Rotbard uses a nice soft end-rhyme for the first two lines: "pre-dawn" and "still on". He uses this technique fairly often in his Tanka and it gives them a song like quality.

I'll close with one that I particularly liked:

Journey

Launch a paper boat,
watch it float down the river.
That's my life coursing
through rough waters, arms waving,
until you see me no more.

I think the most creative work in English language Tanka is being done in these out of the way corners of the publishing world by poets who, like so many others down through the centuries, find the Tanka form congenial to their hearts.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Little Things

More years have gone by
Than years we were together.
It's the little things
That I recall, now and then;
Paying bills, morning tea, and . . .


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

I enjoy watching
Clothes tumble in the dryer
At the laundromat;
It reminds me of sunset
And its swiftly shifting hues.

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Wow! Three weeks have passed. I am amazed. I meant to take a brief break from the internet, keep my online activity at a minimum. But now I'm back here in cyberspace with a new Tanka:


Yesterday I spoke
To the memory of you
As I was walking
Clouds moved in and covered
The last rays of the August sun.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Walking in the dark
Yet stars above and now and then
Fireflies light the earth.
Arm in arm the warmth of friends,
A treasured shining moment.

Neal Henry Lawrence, from his Tanka collection, "Shining Moments"

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

P.S. I'll be giving a reading on Tanka at Many Rivers in Sebastopol tomorrow, Thursday, at 7:30 p.m. Many Rivers is at 130 South Main Street. If you want further information call Many Rivers at 829-8871.

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

I visited the town of Sonoma recently:

Sunday afternoon,
Strolling around the town square,
Talking and shopping.
Birds gather for fallen crumbs.
Stars wait patiently for dusk.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

In the library
I find a place of silence
And some detachment,
Like a sparrow perched upon
A boulder in a river.


Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

He wrote "butterfly"
And watched it struggle to break
Free of the paper.
He wrote "pony" and saw it
Gallop out of its shadow.

Stuart Jay Silverman
Ribbons Magazine, Winter 2007

[Dharmajim]

After Reading Chuang Tzu

Wandering freely,
Cheerfully pacing the void,
Coming and going --
Even candles in the wind
Briefly shed light on the path.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

The thousand colors
Of my daughter's plain brown hair
In morning sunshine --
And for a moment the light
In my wife's hair touched with grey.

Bernard Lionel Einbond
Wind Five Folded

[Dharmajim]

They wanted heros
So we glady volunteered
To destroy our foes.
Alas, we were successful.
Now there's only dust and tears.

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

In the quiet bay
Seals roll and tumble
Drifting with the tide
Sea and sky -- distinctions lost
Twilight colors you cannot see

Peter Duppenthaler
Wind Five Folded

[Dharmajim]

All the way to school,
My son wants reasons to learn.
In my friend's garden,
On a trailer, rests a boat
Which has never put to sea.

Anthony Knight
Tanka Splendor 1997

[Dharmajim]

A Dialogue with Buson:

Going out the gate
An old acquaintance appears --
Twilight in Autumn (Buson)

"When did we last talk? he asks.
"Come by for sake some night." (DJ)

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Love becomes quiet
As the years accumulate
As its roots deepen
A tree becomes more stable,
Capable of enduring.

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

A Dialogue with the Haiku Poet Shiki:

The autumn wind:
For me there are no more gods;
There are no Buddhas (Shiki)

The touch of newly washed sheets
And the weight of an old quilt (DJ)


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

The sound of sweeping
Outside of the bakery
On Monday morning
A pastery and coffee
Wakes me up, gets me going.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Though we quarreled
I waited for the full moon
And listened that night
For the click of the gate
And your step on the path.

Sydney Bougy
Tanka Splendor

[Dharmajim]

A Dialogue with Buson:


Even stronger now
Because of being alone
The moon is a friend (Buson)

I turn off the bedside lamp
In a motel far from home (DJ)


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

All night long the geese
Gabble at one another
Round the frozen shore --
Flight itinerary plans
Or just chanting to stay high?

Richard Stevenson
Simply Haiku, September 2003

[Dharmajim]

Analects 1.1

Isn't it a joy,
When old friends come and visit,
To see them again,
To sit around a table
Talking through the night till dawn.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Gray in the mirror,
I refuse to dye my hair,
Indulge in despair,
Brittle scattered autumn leaves,
A car with lots of mileage.

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

P.S. This Tanka was published in the "Ash Moon Anthology".

[wildflower]

I sometimes repair these beloved old shirts
but cannot
as of yet
raise anyone from ashes


One day I reluctantly decided that a shirt of mine was no longer wearable --

I loved that old shirt.
I had it for 15 years.
It fit like a glove.
I tore it into rags today.
Soon, someone will spread my ashes.

Dharmajim

[wildflower]

The lonely cry of
a single goose
across the sky
brings sunset


All night long the geese
Gabble at one another
Round the frozen shore --
Flight itinerary plans
Or just chanting to stay high?

Richard Stevenson
Simply Haiku, September 2003

[wildflower]

Life is like a roll of toilet paper.
The closer it gets to the end
the faster it goes!


I had my birthday a few days ago. Time seems to move faster as I get older, something I have noticed for a number of years.

Days go by so fast
Even years vanish like sparks
Absorbed by the night.
When was it that we last talked?
Where can I find last night's dream?

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Thanks to all of you who have expressed your appreciation for various Tanka posted here. It is gratifying to see that these poems communicate to others.

A special thanks to Wildflower for your responses, and for pointing out the typo.

Here's a Tanka for today:


Hazy autumn moon --
The sound of chestnuts dropping
From an empty sky.
I gather your belongings
Into boxes for the poor.

Margaret Chula
Wind Five Folded

Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

A Dialogue with Buson:


Night passes quickly --
On river shallows remains
A piece of the moon (Buson)

An owl lingers into dawn
Awake on a high pine branch (DJ)

[Dharmajim]

After Reading the Chinese Poet Po Chu-I

Everything appears
Out of the nameless silence;
Then for a brief time
Things sing a song of presence,
With their last note they return.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

On the northern hills
Now there trails a band of cloud,
A blue cloud drifting,
Drawing away from the star,
Drawing away from the moon.


Empress Jito (645 - 702)
Translated by Edwin Cranston
A Waka Anthology: Volume One -- The Gem-Glistening Cup

[Dharmajim]

Millions of people
In cars and trains and subways
Buy and sell and trade --
One lonely warbler singing,
And we give our hearts away.


Sam Hamill
A Dragon in the Clouds

[Dharmajim]

A Dialogue With Buson:


The twilight mountain,
The redness of the maples
Slowly fades to dark (Buson)

As devas start gathering
By the side of the river (DJ)

[Dharmajim]

Jane Reichhold has been a steady influence on my poetry for many years. She recently published a complete translation of Basho's Haiku; I highly recommend it for anyone interested in haiku and Japanese poetry.

Jane wrote the following haiku:

river
above the river
fog

In appreciation, I wrote the following tanka:

The flowing river,
Above the flowing river,
The hovering fog,
Above the hovering fog,
The flow of the galaxies . . .


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

The house is decayed
And its mistress has grown old:
Perhaps that is why
Garden and fence have vanished,
Leaving only autumn fields.



Archibishop Henjo
Kokinwakashu

A collection of Tanka,
Known then as Waka,
From about 905.
Translated by Helen Craig McCullough

[Dharmajim]

After a long drive
Alone in the hotel room
I fill my tea mug
With sweet scented honeysuckle
From just outside the door

Sharon Hammer Baker
Ribbons, Spring 2008

[Dharmajim]

A Dialogue with Buson


Arriving alone
To visit someone alone
In the autumn dusk (Buson)

The sound of bamboo windchimes
Heard briefly, then the silence (DJ)


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

A year ago the Yangtze River Dolphin was declared extinct.

In Memoriam: The Yangtze River Dolphin

November sunset --
Quickly does the evening fall
Upon the village.
The Yangtze River still flows
Past the fossils on the shore.


Best wishes,

Dharmajim

[Dharmajim]

In the sea of sky
The waves of cloud rise up,
And the moon-boat
Is seen rowing out of sight
Into the forest of stars.

Hitomaro (ca. 689 - 700)

Translated by Edwin Cranston
A Waka Anthology Volume One
The Gem-Glistening Cup

[Dharmajim]

Through the leafless trees
Across the lake two suns rise
Soft mist separates
The sun of dawn appearing
Reflected in the water.


Neal Henry Lawrence
Shining Moments

[Dharmajim]

By the ocean's edge
I wait patiently for more
Memories of you,
Riding the incoming waves
Or the last rays of the sun.

[Dharmajim]

With never a thought
That I might be remembered,
I let time go by --
Accustomed to Ogura's pines
Standing right here at my eaves.

Fujiwara no Teika (1162 - 1241)
Translated by Steven Carter
"Householders"

[Dharmajim]

Can you hear the sound
Of the ending of the day,
Of the sun setting
As it ends its daily round
So that sleep and dream hold sway?

[Dharmajim]

I would like to fill
My sleeves to overflowing
With many-hued leaves
And carry them back to those
Who may think autumn is done.

Monk Sosei
Translated by Helen McCullough
Kokinwakashu -- 905 c.e.

[Dharmajim]

Good Friends:

Look who is back! My computer died; seriously, it just keeled over. All gone. And I've been trying to decide what computer to replace it with. My friends are divided between the Mac and the PC and since I'm a technopeasant I find myself unable to decide. I don't feel in a rush though. I kind of like not having a computer (I'm posting away from home).

My computer crashed
Internet access is gone
I find it restful
There's less clutter in my mind
And I seem to have more time

Best wishes,

Jim