I was alone on a sunny shore by the forest’s pale blue lake, in the sky floated a single cloud and on the water a single isle. The ripe sweetness of summer dripped in beads from every tree and straight into my opened heart a tiny drop ran down. by Edith Södergran, translated from Swedish…
Among deep mountains the heart’s moon shines pure and I see within that mirror the whole world enlightened Saigyō, translated form Japanese by Meredith McKinney This is a Tanka poem by Japanese hermit Saigyō Hōshi who lived in the 12th Century. Saigyō is very widely known and much loved for his poetry of renunciation…
(to listen to the author speaking this poem, please click here) my brain and heart divorced a decade ago over who was to blame about how big of a mess I have become eventually, they couldn’t be in the same room with each other now my head and heart share custody of me stay with…
And whom do I call my enemy? An enemy must be worthy of engagement. I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking. It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind. The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun. It sees and knows everything. It hears the gnashing even…