The Iris

Unknown

The iris standing in the marsh - so blue,

Its roots have drunk the sky's reflected hue.

HO-O

fr. A Net of Fireflies

translated by Harold Stewart

Pretty hard to add to that. And that's the thing about haiku - the distillation of so many thoughts. Packing the maximum punch into each word. Lovely, isn't it? The roots drinking up the reflected blue? . 
 
   

The Snow-Shower

Tsuchiya Koitsu

The Snow-Shower

Stand here by my side and turn, I pray, 

   On the lake below, thy gentle eyes;

The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray, 

   And dark and silent the water lies;

And out of that frozen mist the snow 

In wavering flakes begins to flow;

                            Flake after flake 

They sink in the dark and silent lake.

See how in a living swarm they come 

   From the chambers beyond that misty veil;

Some hover awhile in air, and some 

   Rush prone from the sky like summer hail.

All, dropping swiftly or settling slow, 

Meet, and are still in the depths below;

                            Flake after flake 

Dissolved in the dark and silent lake.

Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud, 

   Come floating downward in airy play,

Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd 

   That whiten by night the milky way;

There broader and burlier masses fall; 

The sullen water buries them all–

                            Flake after flake–

All drowned in the dark and silent lake.

And some, as on tender wings they glide 

   From their chilly birth-cloud, dim and gray,

Are joined in their fall, and, side by side, 

   Come clinging along their unsteady way;

As friend with friend, or husband with wife, 

Makes hand in hand the passage of life;

                            Each mated flake 

Soon sinks in the dark and silent lake.

Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste 

   Stream down the snows, till the air is white,

As, myriads by myriads madly chased, 

They fling themselves from their shadowy height.

   The fair, frail creatures of middle sky, 

What speed they make, with their grave so nigh;

                            Flake after flake, 

To lie in the dark and silent lake!

I see in thy gentle eyes a tear; 

   They turn to me in sorrowful thought;

Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear, 

   Who were for a time, and now are not;

Like these fair children of cloud and frost, 

That glisten a moment and then are lost,

                            Flake after flake–

All lost in the dark and silent lake.

Yet look again, for the clouds divide; 

   A gleam of blue on the water lies;

And far away, on the mountain-side, 

   A sunbeam falls from the opening skies,

But the hurrying host that flew between 

The cloud and the water, no more is seen;

                            Flake after flake, 

At rest in the dark and silent lake.

William Cullen Bryant

 

To pause and notice all the various qualities of a thing, its appearance, its effect, the way it calls to mind other beings and ideas - how often do we slow down enough to do this? And how much of life do we miss because we skim over and through it? A poem like this one shows me how little practice I have in savoring life. The way Bryant takes his time, turns his rhyme so thoughtfully, moves so mesmerically through them, makes me want to do the same. Appreciation and poetry take time. I need to re-learn how to take my time.

All You Can See or Imagine

"Summer Night", AkagenoSaru

All You Can See or Imagine

Who has scooped up the ocean

in his two hands,

or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger,

who has put all the earth's dirt in one of his baskets,

weighed each mountain and hill?

Who could ever have told God what to do

or taught him his business?

What expert would he have gone to for advice,

what school would he attend to learn justice?

...

"So - who is like me?

Who holds a candle to me?" says The Holy.

Look at the night skies:

Who do you think made all this?

Who marches this army of stars out each night,

counts them off, calls each by name,

- so magnificent! so powerful! - 

and never overlooks a single one!

Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,

or whine, Israel, saying,

"God has lost track of me,

He doesn't care what happens to me'?

Don't you know anything? Haven't you been listening?

God doesn't come and go. God lasts.

He doesn't get tired out, doesn't pause to catch his breath.

And he knows everything, inside and out.

He energizes those who get tired,

gives fresh strength to dropouts.

For even young people tire and drop out,

young folk in their prime stumble and fall.

But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.

They spread their wings and soar like eagles,

They run and don't get tired,

they walk and don't lag behind.

Isaiah 40:12-14, 25-31

fr. The Message

Some prefer the more poetic King James version of the Bible (I think, when it comes down to it, I do too). But there is something interesting about the way Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible brings a new slant to the old familiar words. I like to read both, or several versions, just to compare the tone and feeling each conveys. This passage is a wonderful example of a “wake-me-up”. Something to take up after a sleepless night in which your worries have grown to enormous scope and paralyzing power, where the guilty corners of conscience are full of ugly and unshakable recollections, where the fear that there are nothing but odds against and nothing to even us, to balance, to restore or right us, and then, the morning – my gosh, have you ever felt that inexplicable loneliness of simply being alive? Well that’s when I take up the wake-up poetry, the break-up-this-narrowing-mental-corridor-going-nowhere poetry; and listen to me on this, there is no better place to find this but in the Bible. It’s like a hand upraised, a voice that says, “Peace. Be still.” And it stops. It all stops. The noise in my head, the tightness of my chest, the snowballing thoughts. It’s like being off-kilter, out of joint, askew, and having someone take me by the shoulders and set me right in place. My place. Where I fit, where I belong.

“Who is like me?”

Oh yeah. There it is. That’s right. My God, my God, my heavenly father – he knows. He has not forgotten. He has not been sleeping or looking the other way. He is working, he has never paused, hesitated, or faltered. He has not changed his mind about loving me. I can shake off this weight. I can stand up straight. I can go on.

The King James version gets the spirit of the last verse best -

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;

they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not grow weary;

and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Summer

Eero Järnefelt

Summer

Voluptuous in plenty, summer is

Neglectful of the earnest ones who've sought her.

She best resides with what she images:

Lakes windless with profound sun-shafted water;

Dense orchards in which high-grassed heat grows thick;

The one-lane country road where, on his knees,

A boy initials soft tar with a stick;

Slow creeks which bear flecked light through depths of trees.

And he alone is summer's who relents

In his poor enterprisings; who can sense,

In alleys petal-blown, the wealth of chance;

Or can, supine in a deep meadow, pass

Warm hours beneath a moving sky's expanse,

Chewing the sweetness form long stalks of grass.

Timothy Steele

from The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, ed. Phillis Levin

The line, "summer is neglectful of the earnest ones who've sought her." has given me some pause. Who would that be? Is it the gardeners and farmers to whom summer means the unfolding of their careful plans? Or the person to whom summer signifies the reaching of a goal? That word "sought" seems to infer pursuit. "She best resides with what she images." The word "Image" turned into a verb throws me off. Could it mean that she is in harmony with the one who simply takes in the scenes where she lives? She who is a fullness, an abundance, a generous outpouring, a flourishing, a multiplication, addition (Ha! Take that, Jay Parini, no subtraction here!), an expansion of everything - she smiles at our paltry plans, our miserly notions of Accomplishment, and flings her extravagance in our faces. Flowersflowersflowersleavesleavesleavesfruitfruitfruitfoodfoodfoodfoodand BeautyBeautyBeauty. What accomplishment is greater than this? Let's throw away our lesser goals. Let's lay down in a deep meadow and watch the parade of clouds. Let's be summer's children in her kingdom of bounty.

(And yes, I included this poem mainly because it's about lying down in the grass, one of the great pleasures of life. And here's another poem about it too,  "Silent Noon", by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)