Leafstorm
07-27-2008, 04:21 PM
In Day After the Beginning of Autumn you asked,
“What is it that binds, what jails, the body here?”
Were we together by Meandering Stream,
emptying first your wine jug then mine,
we’d know that the sun and the moon are less than unforgiving.
For what does our simple fear of the dark cicada’s cry
have to do with the grinding of the great mountain as it
expands and cools and never laughs or cries?
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If you have sworn to walk alone for all your life, my friend,
I’m sure it’s not for lack of love of company,
but is simply the Way’s way of teaching by
half a century’s accumulation of fallen leaves.
You would think that every disappointing fruit that falls
would provide some pip of wisdom.
How many times have you wondered: How many times
have the swallows, the guests,
the loved ones prepared to leave?
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Is it fear of the path through the forest at night?
Or does it take courage to compare the waxing moons?
It was up to you, Tu Fu, to quit or hold,
and now it is up to me,
to ask you how you found the strength
to watch so many setting suns, so many falling leaves,
and the swallows flying off again and again,
and again and again.
“What is it that binds, what jails, the body here?”
Were we together by Meandering Stream,
emptying first your wine jug then mine,
we’d know that the sun and the moon are less than unforgiving.
For what does our simple fear of the dark cicada’s cry
have to do with the grinding of the great mountain as it
expands and cools and never laughs or cries?
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
If you have sworn to walk alone for all your life, my friend,
I’m sure it’s not for lack of love of company,
but is simply the Way’s way of teaching by
half a century’s accumulation of fallen leaves.
You would think that every disappointing fruit that falls
would provide some pip of wisdom.
How many times have you wondered: How many times
have the swallows, the guests,
the loved ones prepared to leave?
<o:p></o:p>
Is it fear of the path through the forest at night?
Or does it take courage to compare the waxing moons?
It was up to you, Tu Fu, to quit or hold,
and now it is up to me,
to ask you how you found the strength
to watch so many setting suns, so many falling leaves,
and the swallows flying off again and again,
and again and again.