Flame or not
Leaf-detritus is pool-clung
Held in
Rankled-water
Battle-aftermath,
Winter beats a hollowed-drum.
Poèmes sur le thème : leaf
Poèmes sur le thème « leaf » sur Poets.by.
Ballet
Dwarfed by black yews
you pirouette, a ruby shadow
in green arabesque fern.
Twirling like an autumn leaf
you dance in the shade
for a flute of birds.
Beneath a quilt of fern
your breasts bud and flower
I glimpse the wind.
Here I Hear a Footstep
Here I hear a footstep,
Its voice is grey and soft:
Is it that of a forgotten ghost ?
So, a rain-drop drops, ....
Yes, one, two, three.
Up in the sky there is a cloud,
Its sight is old as Earth :
Who says it is the passing soul ?
At my feet I see a falling leaf,
And the cloud is gone.
After the night wind blows
My soul follows to seek Rest :
Is the wind my mother lost ?
Under the robe of darkness and love
My heart throbs happily with bliss.
Hokku 8
Sudden pain of earth
I hear in the fallen leaf.
"Life's autumn," I cry.
Farewell
Bright shower of lambent butterflies,
Soft cloud of murmuring bees,
O fragile storm of sighing leaves
Adrift upon the breeze !
Wild birds with eager wings outspread
To seek an alien sky.
Sweet comrades of a lyric spring.
My little songs, good-bye !
Immortal
So soon my body will have gone
Beyond the sound and sight of men,
And tho' it wakes and suffers now,
Its sleep will be unbroken then;
But oh, my frail immortal soul
That will not sleep forevermore,
A leaf borne onward by the blast,
A wave that never finds the shore.
"Did You Never Know?"
Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me--
That your love would never lessen and never go?
You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,
You were too young to know.
Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it
Far apart, far away in the gusty time of year--
Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking,
I know your secret, my dear, my dear.
Epitaph
Serene descent, as a red leaf’s descending
When there is neither wind nor noise of rain,
But only autumn air and the unending
Drawing of all things to the earth again:
So be it; let the snow sift deep and cover
All that was drunken once with light and air;
The earth will not regret her tireless lover,
Nor he awake to know she does not care.
Minna XVII
Afternoon sunlight limps tenuously away,
Leaving a snarled retrospect of golden foot-marks.
The sea is pregnant with gracious discords
That falteringly shroud the sleep-rhythmed breasts of winds.
The sky is a genially vacant stare.
Remaining touches of starlight
Tremble the leaves when air is still....
And so my love for you strolls through this day,
Picking up forgotten hints of its heart.
Japanese Hokku 4
What if the wind blows?
What if the leaves are scattered,
Now that they are dead?
Tanka VI
And now Spring has come
Blossoming up my garden.
I alone unchanged.
Moving in my house of Autumn.
One leaf alone saves a tree.
Tanka III
Drink in moods of joy!
Why should the sky be lonely?
Neither sun nor moon--
How my heart is shy of night
Like Autumn’s leaf brown pendants.