In the summer night
The evening still seems present,
But the dawn is here.
To what region of the clouds
Has the wandering moon come home?
~ Kiyohara no Fukayabu (cited: Ogura Hyakunin Isshu)
summer night
Tag: japanese poetry
princess nukada
When spring escapes
freed from being huddled in winter’s sleep,
the birds that had been stilled
burst into song.
The buds that had been hidden
burst into flower.
The mountains are so thickly forested
that we cannot reach the flowers
and the flowers are so tangled with vines
that we cannot pick them.
When the maple leaves turn scarlet
on the autumn hills,
it is easy to gather them
and enjoy them.
We sigh over the green leaves
but leave them as they are.
That is my only regret–
so I prefer the autumn hills.
~Princess Nukada – 7th Century (K Rexroth I Atsumi, The Burning Heart*)
*note: Princess Nukada lived in the later half of the 7th Century. She was the daughter of Prince Kagami, wife and the favorite of Emperor Temmu.
the new sanctuary coalition
Thinking of the world
Sleeves wet with tears are my bed-fellows.
Calmly to dream sweet dreams–
There is no night for that. ~Izumi Shikibu (Diaries of Court Ladies of Old
The New Sanctuary Coalition’s call for action:
We are resolved to form a U.S. Caravan of supporters who will meet the Central American Caravan in Mexico, witness their movement, and accompany them into the U.S. At the border, we will assist those seeking entry with their demands to enter the US without losing their liberty
Hate speech and violence have crept into our communities with the targeting of synagogues, churches and other houses of worship and murders of their congregations. We want and need to stop this violence and we are calling you to stand with us, to put your bodies on the line.
The right to migrate is fundamental. Without it, the right to work, to be free, to live, cannot be realized. We reaffirm our conviction that every member of the Central American Caravan has an inalienable human right to flee from violence and poverty and toward better economic and political conditions elsewhere, regardless of national boundaries. We submit that they possess a right to enter and remain in the U.S. equal to anyone born there.
It has become amoral to engage in neutrality or silence on the right to migrate. On this issue there is a right side of history and a wrong side – but there is no middle. Each of us is morally obliged to choose such a side. The law will either make human beings illegal, or it will legalize equality, but it cannot accomplish both. The world is asking you to choose a side.
The New Sanctuary Coalition is resolved to choose the side of liberty and equality. We are resolved to sacrifice in solidarity with those leaders of liberty and pioneers of equality who are nonviolently asserting their right to migrate by moving their caravan of brave souls across the U.S./Mexican border.
If you are a lawyer, join our legal community. If you are a faith leader, join our clergy group. If you are a person of conscience, join our local organizing in your state. Click here to tell us how you would like to get involved and we will connect you with an organizing community that matches your skills and interests.
Sanctuary Caravan at NSC
http://www.sanctuarycaravan.org/
orchid
The poetry of Japan has its seeds in the human heart and mind and grows into the myriad leaves of words. Because people experience many different phenomena in this world, they express that which they think and feel in their hearts in terms of all that they see and hear. A nightingale singing among the blossoms, the voice of a pond-dwelling frog–listening to these, what living being would not respond with his own poem? It is poetry which effortlessly moves the heavens and earth, awakens the world of invisible spirits to deep feeling, softens the relationship between men and women, and consoles the hearts of fierce warriors.
~Ki no Tsurayuki, (preface Kosinsbū, ca. 905)
thoughts
Would the flames of thought
that envelop your body
ever be quenched?
Never but of the blowing
of these cool winds.
~Saigyo (B Watson, Poems of a Mountain Home)
oblivious
Spring departs —
the clear moon oblivious
of passing time
~Soseki (S Carter, Haiku before Haiku)
in place of morn’ dew
regrets as I may,
even the bell
has a different sound now,
and soon frost will fall
in place of morning dew
~Saigyo (B. Watson, Poems of a Mountain Home)
we saw you off…
We saw you off,
and returning through the fields
I thought the morning dew
had wet my sleeve,
but it was tears. ~Saigyo (Poems of a Mountain Home)
perfectly quiet…
today too
keeping perfectly quiet. . .
little duck ~Issa (www.haikuguy.com)
thursday’s special: s-curve
Today again
I’ll go to the hill
where the pine winds blow –
perhaps to meet my friend
who was cooling himself there yesterday.
~ Saigyo (Poems of a Mountain Home)
…submitted in response to Lost in Translation’s photo challenge: s-curve.
