Poem of the Day

For the man who says
He tires of his child
There are no flowers

Basho

The Burning sun
Sunk in the sea
By the Mogami river

Basho

That soon they will die
Is unknown
To the chirping cicadas

Basho

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free

- Maya Angelou

The night, it is deserted
from the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you,
I am not alone!

The sky, it is deserted
for the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone !

The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,
I am not alone!

- Gabriela Mistral

WHAT drunkenness is this that brings me hope–
Who was the Cup-bearer, and whence the wine?
That minstrel singing with full voice divine,
What lay was his? for ‘mid the woven rope
Of song, he brought word from my Friend to me
Set to his melody.

The wind itself bore joy to Solomon;
The Lapwing flew from Sheba’s garden close,
Bringing good tidings of its queen and rose.
Take thou the cup and go where meadows span
The plain, whither the bird with tuneful throat
Has brought Spring’s sweeter note. (more…)

The plums tasted
sweet to the unlettered desert-tribe girl-
but what manners! To chew into each!

She was ungainly, low-caste, ill mannered and dirty,
but the god took the fruit she’d been sucking.

Why? She knew how to love.
She might not distinguish
splendour from filth
but she’d tasted the nectar of passion.

Might not know any Veda,
but a chariot swept her away-
now she frolics in heaven, ecstatically bound
to her god.

The Lord of Fallen Fools, says Mira,
will save anyone who can practice rapture like that-
I myself in a previous birth
was a cow herding girl
at Gokul.

• Mirabai 

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain’d his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray’d together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,
Ne’er to be found again.

• Robert Herrick

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit,
Or wilt thou go ask the mole?
Can wisdom be put in a silver rod,
Or Love in a golden bowl?

From the Book of Thel.
William Blake

The bridge between the rapture and the calm,
The passion and the beauty of the Bride,
The chamber where the glorious enemies kiss,
The smile that saves, the golden peak of things?
This too is Truth at the mystic fount of Life.
A black veil has been lifted; we have seen
The mighty shadow of the omniscient Lord;
But who has lifted up the veil of light
And who has seen the body of the King?
The mystery of God’s birth and acts remains
Leaving unbroken the last chapter’s seal,
Unsolved the riddle of the unfinished Play;
The cosmic Player laughs within his mask,
And still the last inviolate secret hides
Behind the human glory of a Form,
Behind the gold eidolon of a Name.

- Sri Aurobindo
- From: Savitri

• Savitri by Sri Aurobindo

I.
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

II.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro’ its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

- Robert Browning

Not spring nor autumn
None touch the heights of Fuji

Baishitsu

Across the summer stream
With such joy
My sandals in my hand

Buson

Oh my… Oh my…
Was all I could say
Of the flowers on Mount Yoshino

Teishitsu