saying nothing:
the guest, the host
the white chrysanthemum
Ryota Oshima
————————————————
I am neither guest nor host
But rather a casual observer
Passing by at first
But then standing still
Sitting still
Breathing in
Breathing out
I have no flowers with me
Except in my imagination
Except in my heart
But I say nothing about this
Not to anyone
haiku mind
108 poems to
cultivate awareness
& open your heart
is by Patricia Donegan
across a rose fence—
a cat lover
a cat hater
Kazuo Sato
————————————————
He was a partition dispute expert
Trying to bring together
Disparate, argumentative neighbours
Also he was a quantity surveyor
Trying to recover whatever costs
That I told him that we were due
A lifetime then spent by the both of us
On the Boundary, perhaps as sung by
The Duckworth Lewis Method
haiku mind
108 poems to
cultivate awareness
& open your heart
is by Patricia Donegan
The taste
of rain
—Why kneel?
Jack Kerouac
————————————————
You are right
I didn’t know
But now that I do
I am rather pleased
With the style
With the content
With the disobedience
I too tasted the rain
On dark nights
At the bus stop, under the trees
After the long downhill walk
From the cross-country railway station
I also was on a spiritual path
On my way
To see my two beautiful children
As many estranged fathers might
haiku mind
108 poems to
cultivate awareness
& open your heart
is by Patricia Donegan
ah, in the corner
look again-
winter chrysanthemum, red
Teijo Nakamura
————————————————
Yes, Christmas time
The present arrives
As it did last year
As it did the year before
No need for second-guessing
No need to read the card
I Give You This Cadmium Red
To see your figure by the door
I saw you dance
“What, in these shoes” you had said
I insisted on a twirl by the ventilator
Wow you caused such a furore
haiku mind
108 poems to
cultivate awareness
& open your heart
is by Patricia Donegan
picked
by an old woman’s hand
herbs green and glowing
Soen Nakagawa
————————————————
Yesterday
A box built
For growing potatoes
Today
A fresh delivery
Of seeds and plants
The picking
Will be sometime
In the future
But for now
We hold onto
The promise:
“It is not that
the form is only material
And the emptiness spiritual”
Quotation is from Stephen Batchelor’s
The Art of Solitude
haiku mind
108 poems to
cultivate awareness
& open your heart
is by Patricia Donegan