When you set out to look for the Way,
At once it changes to something
That is to be sought in your self.
When sight becomes no-sight,
You come to possess the jewel,
But you have not yet fully penetrated into it.
Suddenly one day everything is empty like space
That has no inside or outside, no bottom or top,
And you are aware of one principle
Pervading all the ten thousand things.
You know then that your heart
Is so vast that it can never be measured.
- Daikaku (1213-1279)
The following is one poem from a series of poems I wrote which play off the poetry of Han Shan, 7th Century Chinese poet. I am not certain, but the form may be a tanka. However, I'm familiar with the poetry of Han Shan as Gary Snyder translated them. My persona takes the form of a poet I call Old Grey-house.
ReplyDelete[2] Hunger World
Sometimes, I travel out from my gray cave/
On Cannon Street into a larger world. Human voices/
Fill my ringing ears, human sounds, malls echo where/
Hundreds of steel steeds sit between yellow lines.
Momentarily confused, old Gray-house thinks his realm is here,/
Lighted fluorescent—red, orange, green and blue—/
Strange heaven where an appetite never rests,/
Hungry for meat at the Red Robin hamburger emporium.