The Call of Spring
Every child thrills to the call of spring:
live, grow, blossom, hope, and love.
Send out your branches, make everything new,
be fearless and give in to living.
Every old man hears the message of spring
whose ripening days all fall toward the grave.
Make way for all the blossoming boys,
be fearless and give in to dying.
Spring Descends
Again it descends from melted peaks
by way of the brown dirt path.
When spring in its beauty approaches anew
dear blossoms and birdsong arise.
Again spring seduces my mind
with pure and delicate blooms;
for a while I’m at home and belong
on this earth where I’m only a guest.
Spring
Winter was prison:
I did my time dreaming
of blue winds, of fragrance,
of branches in bloom.
Openly now you unfold your splendor
bathed in marmoreal glow—
a wondrous display just for me.
You know me again,
entice me inside you,
and your blessed presence
vibrates in my bones.
Everlasting Spring
Young clouds slide across the blue,
flowers smile and children sing:
wherever I look, my faded eyes
need to ignore what I’ve gathered from books.
The bulk of my ponderous bookish days
has begun to dissolve like snow in the sun;
my eyes take delight in a life that is showing
each moment unfold as a fresh creation.
The ample chambers of my heart
are stored with beauty immune to mutation,
whose richness endures from spring to spring
saved from the sweeping storm by love.
Spring Night
The wind spreads its sleepy wing
over the chestnut tree.
Moonglow and twilight trickle down
the steeply slanted roofs.
The cooling waters of wells gush
with tales from legend and myth.
The ten o’clock bells prepare
to proclaim a festive toll.
In the hidden garden moon-glazed trees
are deep in their sweet secret sleep.
A breeze rustling through the treetops
blows from the land of dreams.
The body of my warm violin
slips from my hesitant hand.
Amazed I gaze into the sky
yearning and dreaming in silence.
Birch Tree
What poet could imagine the ease
of your branches’ flow through the wind
or the grace of their rise to the sky?
Tendrils youthful and lithe
caress each breeze
with tender sympathy.
Your limbs in their tremble and sway
dance the luminous legend
of innocent, tender first love.
February Twilight
Shades of blue night are falling into the lake.
Patches of snow are melting into the fog
like bleached dreams of life never lived.
Night breezes warm the sleeping streets
of the village, pause at fences and release
seeds of spring into gardens and dreams of the young.
March
Now violets appear
in fields of green.
At the dark woods’ edge,
patches of snow
melt flake by flake
into thirsty soil.
Like flocks of sheep
bright clouds drift
across the pale sky.
Finch love-calls
echo in the leaves.
People, begin to sing
your love for one another.
Upon the Death of an Infant
You have just gone, child,
knowing nothing of life,
leaving us old ones caught
in our withered years.
In a breath and a blink
you tasted earth’s air;
it was enough, or even too much?
Then you slept to wake no more.
Perhaps a whiff and a peek
sufficed to reveal life—
all its games and its deceits:
Frightened you withdrew in terror?
Oh, child, perhaps one day
when our eyes forever close,
it may seem to us
we have not seen of this earth more than you.
Across the Fields
As clouds drift across the sky
and wind blows through the fields,
over the meadows I wander,
my mother’s missing child.
Stray leaves blow along the road,
among the trees birds call.
Somewhere over the hills
must be my faraway home.
Little Boy
When they punish me,
my mouth shut I keep,
cry myself to sleep
and wake up whole.
When they punish me
and call me little one,
with crying I am done
and laugh myself to sleep.
Big people die,
uncle and grandpapa,
but I am I
and always will remain.
Odysseus at Livorno
The sun sinks below the horizon
and magically a black-masted ship
pins my eye to the edge of the unseen.
I imagine divine Odysseus, hand on helm
steering to escape nameless homesickness
across perilous seas to his own far country.
Throughout the long night, unyielding to fate,
his sharp eyes measure the starry skies;
a hundred times lost and imperiled,
longing drives him to fight fear and death.
Tormented by storms on his hopeless ride,
unbending he steers toward his final goal.
That distant ship slips from my view
into the dark blue sea; its fate fills my dreams
and my quiet questions slip into the blue:
Where the ship is sailing, is it there
my wish will come true? Perhaps.
And which ship will carry me there?
Till then, my errant heart, endure.
Listen Up
A sound so subtle, a breath so new
comes into this grey day
like the faint flutter of avian wings,
like the tentative fragrance of spring.
Memories of life’s dawning days
drift across the morning,
hover over seas like silvery lights
tremble and fade away.
Yesterday seems far from today
the long forgotten seems near;
the ancient world and fairy-tale time
are open here like a garden.
Maybe today my forefather wakes
who lived a thousand years past;
and now he speaks with my own voice
and warms himself in my blood.
Maybe a messenger stands outside
then comes right into my space.
Maybe before this day is done
I will find myself back at home.
A Page in a Diary
On the slope behind my house today I dug a hole,
spading deeply through root-works, excising
stones and meager soil. For an hour
I knelt in forest and marsh and at the feet
of old chestnut trees, gathered with trowel and hand
decayed nut mulch, two full buckets
warm, black, and redolent of mushrooms.
In the hole nestled by peaty earth I planted a tree,
moistened it with sun-warmed water, swaddled the root.
There it stands, little and young, and there
it will stand when we are gone and our heydays
with their endless woes and insane fears are forgotten.
Hot winds will bend it, rainstorms will twist it,
sunlight will smile on it, wet snow will oppress it,
siskin and nuthatch will live in it,
silent hedgehog will root around its foot.
And whatever it has known, tasted, or endured
through the passage of seasons, the generations of beasts,
the burdens, healings, actions of sun and wind
will daily flow through the song of its leaves,
through the sweeping curl of its branch tips,
the fragrance of sweet liquor will moisten its sleeping buds,
as it lives content in the endless play of shadows and light.
Cyclical Thoughts
Someday all these won’t be around anymore,
no more these stupid flashy wars,
fiendish gases flowing toward the enemy,
these wastelands of concrete rubble,
these thorn-thickets of razor wire,
these cradles of death devised with diligence
and spirit, where thousands shiver in fear,
these death networks spun like cowardly jokes
over the land, the sea, and the air.
Mountains will rise to the sky,
starlight will shine through the night,
Cassiopeia, the Dipper, the Twins
orbit their eternal returns,
leaves and grass silvered in dew
will give their green to the morning,
and ceaseless winds will stir ocean waves
to pound the rocks and pale dunes.
But human history will be done and gone,
with its torrents of blood, struggle, and lies,
the arrogant species destroyed by itself
a heap of dust then, all traces extinguished,
ravening greed sated, humans will be forgotten.
Children’s games will be forgotten—
their sweet and enchanting inventions,
those strange and magic creations.
The poems we devised, the buildings we carved
from patient earth, our gods, our sanctuaries and sacred sites,
our tables of letters and numbers all vanished.
Our heaven-seeking organ fugues, our enclosing domes
and our vaunting spires, our libraries,
our paintings, our languages and fairy tales,
our philosophies and dreams, all extinguished,
their light gone from this earth.
And the creator who witnessed the collapse of horrors
into the wonder of silence contemplated fully
the liberated earth. Ringed by the music of the spheres,
in darkness this tiny globe floats. Musingly, he kneads
a lump of clay, shapes a human form, a little son,
who prays to him, a little son whose laughter,
playthings, and childish games endear him.
His fingers shape the clay. He is joyful. He creates.
Daybreak
As sunk in sleep I lie
on the green edge of the wood,
a muffled cry from the country came
and as I rubbed my eyes I saw
the bright day had begun.
Gone was my dream,
my heavy dream. The world
around in order seemed
with space enough for me
and many wandering feet.
Oh day, you youthful day,
I’ll spend your gift in full,
oblivious to time,
to myself and all the weight
that may come after me.
In the Hostel
You laughed when I prayed;
I’m sorry you noticed
and did not keep silent.
I learned how as a boy.
I’d like to see in your eyes
a sign you understand me—
or have you never been a child?
Royal Child
When all the neighbors sleep
and every window is dark,
I, the homeless royal child,
lie awake with burning cheeks.
I bedeck myself with regal dreams
with cape and crown and gems
my royal dress will rustle then
with gold-encrusted seams.
My soul too will rise supreme
glittering with urgent desire
to create the kingdom that I crave
by the silence of the moon.
It May Seem Strange to You
It may seem strange to you
I cannot sleep, but cry
bitter, homesick tears
as if I were a child.
And then for days I roam in dreams
in distant, silent gardens,
immersed in childhood times
with secret sorrows in my heart.
Ode to Beauty
Give us your gentle hand,
we who are lost in dark places;
ripped from the mother’s embrace,
children wandering in foreign lands.
Sometimes in the depths of the dark
your wonderful voice makes a gift
of a homeland song as solace
on an otherwise frightful trip.
We are travelers sans goal or path;
we move through vast, dark spaces.
May you be our merciful guide
until the great dawning is nigh.
Joy of the Painter
Fields yield grain, but that costs cash,
meadows are bounded by miles of wire;
scarcity and greed rule everywhere,
things seem corrupted and all walled in.
Here, however, in my eyes there lives
another way of ordering things:
flowing violet and purple rule,
their songs of innocence I sing.
Yellow by yellow by red are paired,
cool blue colors are tinged with pink,
color and light swing from world to world,
swelling and singing in ecstasy.
A spirit that heals all illness rules,
green resounds from a newborn well,
freshness and meaning spread through the world,
our hearts are delighted and filled with joy.
In the Garden of Youth
My youthful years were a garden
where fountains silvered the greens.
Ancient trees harbored fairy tales
quenching my ardent dreams.
Now I thirst through scorching days
exiled from my youthful home.
Roses clamber crumbling walls
to mock my wandering ways.
Still a song is singing to me
from cool treetops of yore.
Deeper than deep I must listen
for songs lovelier than before.
Springtime in Locarno
Treetops fan the dark sky fire
manifest in celestial blue.
The world is a child’s surprise,
an innocent display.
Well-carved ancient steps
grace the mountain path.
I hear from sunburned wall
the flowers’ first tender call.
Through green cress babbles a brook,
from rocks drops fall, sun licks the leaves,
and spring finds me quick to forget
the bitter farness of home.
A Branch in Full Bloom
A blossoming branch quivers
in the play of the wind.
My heart too swings like a child
between bright and dark days,
between wanting it all and letting go.
Until the blossoms are blown away
and the branches hang with fruit,
my childish heart won’t cease to want,
will not know peace, will not embrace
this restless life as not in vain.
Returning Home at Midnight after a Feast
Softly in the night I stumble
singing myself home alone,
laughed at by wind and rain,
I dream of rhymes and bliss.
Life, oh life, how red you glow;
heart, how bright your song.
All finales, mortal grays
are remote as never before.
Singing softly I open my door,
rain rustles the garden, the wind’s in the trees,
my drunken words fade into space,
inside await sleep and dreams.
Rainy night, in spirit-voice you sing
how life and death awaken in the blood.
Your moist enchanted hands convey
me to the realm where wishes rest.
My most beloved mother waits
to take her tired child to the breast.
At ease and comforted I drift
to where the stars abide.
Novice in Zen Monastery
My father’s house sits in the south
warmed by sun and ocean breeze.
Some nights I wander home in dreams
and wake up wet with tears.
Can my fellow sitters sense
how it is with me? I fear their scorn.
Tough old monks snore like beasts;
I, Yu Wang, quake all night long.
Some day I will take my staff,
tie my sandals on and go
pilgrim back a thousand miles
to the long-lost home I love.
But when by master’s tiger gaze
I’m pierced, I know my path,
my body fills with ice and fire,
with shame I tremble, stay and stay.