Saturday: Helped our friends Cheryl and Tom move out of their house Saturday for a bit … they sold it, as they are getting ready to head to Arizona. Tom and I have known each other some 38 years… Kinda strange and all thinking we won’t be on each others door step every few days. So, after they finished up, we had them and their nephew Woody, over for dinner, and then Woody left for a film with friends.
We sat back for a nice night of Absinthe drinking and general hanging out. A wonderful time, fraught with those emotions of this could be it for quite awhile. (they are threatening to come up for Winter Solstice, which would be rather cool)
A poem that came after they left that evening:
– La Fée Verte Saturday Night –
So the evening flows…
The lights fade, and we sit
drinking absinthe and talking
the times
future and past
and how it is now…
The candle plays across the glasses as I
perform the ceremony:
Absinthe, Spoon, Sugar, Cold Water
mixing the Cloud…
Mary Smiles, asking for a glass
her smile takes mine
and we soon are listening as one..
oh my beautiful one…
Another round
The heavy glasses clouded now
Tom is smiling, his pains have disappeared
“It’s a miracle he exclaims”!
His smile returns and he is the lad
I have always known…
No, it is but the “La Fée Verte”
and she is dancing, dancing in our heads…
I rush to make another and the light is amber
Laughter rises in waves, Laughter rises in waves,
and it is a wonder…
and it is a wonder…
a joyous
Wonder……
—
Sunday: Victor came by, after not showing up for many, many months it seems. Had a great time, talking, drinking coffee (it helped from the night before with the absinthe…) He brought some excellent sounds by, which will migrate over to Earth Rites Radio this week.
I got some nice cards for Fathers’ Day, from my relatives. Thanks to you all. We had a brilliant curry, that Rowan did lots of. He is learning basic Indian Cookery from Mary, and is taking to it like a duck to water!
—
The Week looks like it will be a busy one. Web Site work, finishing the Magazine, Some outside stuff and the odd and interesting that shows up…
On the Menu:
The Links
The Quotes
The Last Poem of Hoshin
Haiku/Poetry: Basho
The Art: Japanese Wood Block Prints from the 18th & 19th Centuries…
Enjoy!
Gwyllm
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The Links:
Taking Happy to the Extreme (caffeine powered!)
SINGAPORE: Blogger who posted cartoons of Christ online being investigated
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The Quotes:
“Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.”
“Do I contradict myself?/ Very well then I contradict myself,/ (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
“The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it’s their fault.”
“A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.”
“The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them.”
“Fashion is something that goes in one year and out the other.”
“Being in the army is like being in the Boy Scouts, except that the Boy Scouts have adult supervision.”
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The Last Poem of Hoshin
The Zen Master Hoshin lived in China many years. Then he returned to the northeastern part of Japan, where he taught his disciples. When he was getting very old, he told them a story he had heard in China. This is the story:
One year on the twenty-fifth of December, Tokufu, who was very old, said to his disciples: “I am not going to be alive next year so you fellows should treat me well this year.”
The pupils thought he was joking, but since he was a great-hearted teacher each of them in turn treated him to a feast on succeeding days of the departing year.
On the eve of the new year, Tokufu concluded: “You have been good to me. I shall leave tomorrow afternoon when the snow has stopped.”
The disciples laughed, thinking he was aging and talking nonsense since the night was clear and without snow. But at midnight snow began to fall, and the next day they did not find their teacher about. They went to the meditation hall. There he had passed on.
Hoshin, who related this story, told his disciples: “It is not necessary for a Zen master to predict his passing, but if he really wishes to do so, he can.”
“Can you?” someone asked.
“Yes,” answered Hoshin. “I will show you what I can do seven days from now.”
None of the disciples believed him, and most of them had even forgotten the conversation when Hoshin called them together.
“Seven days ago,” he remarked, “I said I was going to leave you. It is customary to write a farewell poem, but I am neither a poet or a calligrapher. Let one of you inscribe my last words.”
His followers thought he was joking, but one of them started to write.
“Are you ready?” Hoshin asked.
“Yes sir,” replied the writer.
Then Hoshin dictated:
I came from brillancy
And return to brillancy.
What is this?
This line was one line short of the customary four, so the disciple said: “Master, we are one line short.”
Hoshin, with the roar of a conquering lion, shouted “Kaa!” and was gone.
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Haiku/Poetry: Basho
Cold night: the wild duck
Cold night: the wild duck,
sick, falls from the sky
and sleeps awhile.
—
In this world of ours,
Yo no naka wa kutte hako shite nete okite
Sate sono ato wa shinuru bakari zo
In this world of ours,
We eat only to cast out,
Sleep only to wake,
And what comes after all that
Is simply to die at last.
—
The dragonfly
The dragonfly
can’t quite land
on that blade of grass.
—
Midfield
Midfield,
attached to nothing,
the skylark singing.
—
Wrapping the rice cakes
Wrapping the rice cakes,
with one hand
she fingers back her hair.
—
Four Haiku
Spring:
A hill without a name
Veiled in morning mist.
The beginning of autumn:
Sea and emerald paddy
Both the same green.
The winds of autumn
Blow: yet still green
The chestnut husks.
A flash of lightning:
Into the gloom
Goes the heron’s cry.
—
Heat waves shimmering
Heat waves shimmering
one or two inches
above the dead grass
More Basho:
arranged in saijiki fashion
AUTUMN
this autumn
as reason for growing old
a cloud and a bird
—
the whole family
all with white hair and canes
visiting graves
—
souls’ festival
today also there is smoke
from the crematory
—
lotus pond
as they are unplucked
Souls’ Festival
—
Buddha’s Death Day
from wrinkled praying hands
the rosaries’ sound
—
Mii Temple
knocking on the gate for a wish
today’s moon
—
not to think of yourself
as someone who did not count –
Festival of the Souls
—
the moon so pure
a wandering monk carries it
across the sand
—
all night
autumn winds being heard
behind the mountains
(from Oka no Hosomichi)
—
blue seas
breaking waves smell of rice wine
tonight’s moon
—
so clear the sound
echoes to the Big Dipper
the fulling block
—
hair shaved in a moon-shape
with their hands on their knees
in the early hours of night
—-
the setting moon
the thing that remains
four corners of his desk
—
sleeping in the temple
the serious-looking face
is moon-viewing
—
the full moon
seven story-songs of a woman
turning towards the sea
—
viewing the moon
no one at the party
has such a beautiful face
—
the farmer’s child
rests from husking rice
then sees the moon
—
occasional clouds
one gets a rest
from moon-viewing
—
famous moon!
circling the pond all night
even to the end
—
buying a measure box
now I feel differently
about moon-viewing
—
harvest moon
northland weather
uncertain skies
—
taken in my hand
it will vanish in hot tears
autumn frost
—
full autumn moon
to my gate comes rising
crested tide
—
thin from the Kiso trip
and still not yet recovered
the late harvest moon
—
bright red
the pitiless sun
autumn winds
—
autumn wind
broken with sadness
his mulberry stick
—
autumn winds
in the sliding door’s opening
a sharp voice
—
autumn wind:
as thickets in fields are
Fuwa’s barriers
