Endless Time

Carpe Diem’s Weekend Meditation #51 Tagore’s “Endless Time”

Endless Time
Time is endless in thy hands, my lord.
There is none to count thy minutes.

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers.
Thou knowest how to wait.

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.

We have no time to lose,
and having no time we must scramble for a chance.
We are too poor to be late.

And thus it is that time goes by
while I give it to every querulous man who claims it,
and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last.

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut;
but I find that yet there is time.

© Rabindranath Tagore

we hurl through space
at breakneck speeds lost
forgetting how to breath
through the eons you wait for
your stiff-necked people to change

Weekend Meditation #48 Tagore’s Gitanjali

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #48 Tagore’s Gitanjali

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light,
and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds
leaving my track on many a star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself,
and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.
The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach
the innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before
I shut them and said `Here art thou!’
The question and the cry `Oh, where?’ melt into tears of a thousand streams
and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!’

© Rabindranath Tagore (taken from “Gitanjali”)

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breathtaking  journey
under the summer stars
discovering self

Weekend Meditation #47

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #47 quest for a (new) masterpiece

 

rainy night
the tin roof echos
your name

 ““““““““““““““`

at my feet
rose petals fall –
my heat aching

Weekend Meditation #46 Autumn Coolness

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #46 Renga With Basho Hineri “autumn coolness”

autumn coolness
each peeling with our hands
melons and eggplant

our fingers stained
with memories of summer

with young leaves
I would like to wipe away
the tears in your eyes

offering you shelter
from winter’s harsh language

to get wet passing by
a man is interesting
bush clover in rain

dainty blossoms transending
dampness of the moors

a clear night
cooling myself under cherry trees
waves of flowers

sweetness paling
to the scent of you

blossoms at their peak
the mountain the same as always
at daybreak

today, perhaps
a little brighter with you

swinging bridge
lives are intertwined
in Ivy vines

my thoughts a tangle
of love and disbelief

 

haiku  © Matsuo Basho (Tr. Jane Reichhold; taken from “Basho, The Complete Haiku”)

 

 

Gogyohka

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #45 Gogyohka, a modern way of writing/creating tanka

blackened case
with sudden split
a monarch
emerges
wings unfurling

 

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broken flower
petals
mud splattered
my heart
breaking again

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morning glory
heart shaped leaves
vines encircling
daylilies
blossoms trumpeting

on the beach
waves crashing
against my feet
my thoughts
ebb and flow

grey movement
in the trampled grass
makes me look harder
until I spot
a hatchling

 

 

 

 

My Lucky Tea

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #43 Troiku Challenge: My Lucky Tea

tonight’s moon–
how many mountains resemble
the ones back home?

going outside
plum blossoms dive in…
my lucky tea
© Kobayashi Issa (Tr. David G. Lanoue)

New Year’s eve
moon dives into memories
back home sipping tea

New Year’s eve
plum blossoms swirl
over the mountains

moon dives into memories
your hand brushing mine
a ghost from the past

back home sipping tea
family and friends gather
wrapped in laughter

 

 

A Distant Mountain

Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #40 Troiku Challenge “a distant mountain”
a distant mountain
seen in the sunlight:
a desolate field

a leaf of a paulownia tree
has fallen
in the sunlight

© Takahama Kyoshi (Tr. Katsuya Hiromoto)

mountain paulownia tree
t
he last leaf falls silently

in the sunlight

mountain paulownia tree
d
eep purple shadows
bathed in stories

the last leaf falls silentl
y
no one around to see
it’s departure

in the sunlight
tales of the past
no longer remembered

Bare Branches – Troiku

 Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #31 Troiku … “bare branches”

bare branches
a painting against the blue sky
leaves under my feet

© Yozakura, the Wandering Spirit

bare branches
stretch in the dawn
dropping shadows

a painting against the blue sky
fades quickly
winter approaches

leaves under my feet
crackle with the frost
the sting of your absence

Mountain – kikôbun

Carpe Diem #1403 Mountains (kikôbun)

Bluegrass Parkway

All along the parkway we stopped to photograph the mountains. The scenery was spectacular, but for May it was quite chilly.  This, however, did not deter the spring wildflowers that bloomed in profusion.  The changing light in the sky also added  to the dramatic look of the mountains.

mountain view
parkway over run
with mini coopers

We stopped for lunch along a river.  We had seen a few giant swallowtails from the car and i saw another as walked to the water. I climbed a large rock and sat down.  That’s when I started to notice lots of  swallowtails fluttering down the course of the river.  Their slow movement was hypnotizing.

wildflowers blossom
playing hide and seek
along the path   

mountain path
a snake entwined on a tree
no – a vine

bird sounds
echoing through the woods
hidden from sight
in a clearing
wild turkey