'the world of dew
is a world of dew
and yet...and yet... - Kobayashi Issa
==========================
Nearing Princeton Station
What a wonderful world
this New Jersey is!
Blue train engines!
Withering cornfields
Just turning Autumn leaves
WHOOSH!
The opposing train
Old graves by a lake
Old woman passing in aisle
Fleeting sign outside explains -
FAIR.
=========================
Loose Train Hokku-no-renga
For the blind woman
on the train every
journey is inner
She touches my shoulder,
moves just one seat ahead
feels the winter collar
metal ring pinned
to its shoulder
smiles when she touches it
dark rings of her eyes
light up momentarily
What universes are in the heads all around me
==================
While reading zen master Ummon,
famous for his one word responses
to pupils questions about the nature
of mind, I happen to look up, see a
young, clean-cut preppie reading
Wall Street Journal, large bold print:
YES-BUT-TERS DON'T JUST KILL IDEAS.
Congruence of Ummon and General Motors
ad strikes me. In mind's eye I see, so real:
Ummon enters train car, walks up to preppie,
taps shoulder, thunders in ear,
YES BUT! ! !
I chuckle smugly, stinking of enlightenment,
self pleased, translating, 'ah! kill ideas to get
to the 'thing itself ' or the 'no thing.''
Suddenly Ummon turns, smacks me hard
with his KATZ stick, BAM! And he is correct,
of course, to slam me. Arrogance along the
way, no matter how apparently fitting my
zenny smartness, deserves a hard
KATZ!
I humbly return to my book, chastened,
just write what is seen from the
train window nearing Philadelphia:
Hokku-no-ranga Close To Philly:
State Prison
off the square
in the darkest cells
those forms bursting forth
In Prison Window
a jelly jar, water pours
man hands arranging
a little green vine
View upon entering Philly
receding steeples
the hairline of God
City garden by tracks
A scarecrow even there
Plastic milk jug for a head
Passing glimpse over bridge -
railing beside a stream
a thin student reading Nietzsche -
He who can grasp me,
let him grasp me.
However, I am not your crutch.
- from Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem