Three More Asian Poems

Rock Garden of Ryoanji-Dera

Yellow earthen wall

envelopes crushed white

stone raked in waves

by lone Buddhist monk

around mossy rocks

jutting high into

human consciousness,

but the longer one

stares the farther he

falls through the stones

into a deep abyss

of pure spirit which

may at first frighten

him if he should think

this world is made

of solid substance

as yellow earthen wall

with crushed white stone

and jutting mossy rocks

make it seem to be.

Vales of Shikoku

Through pepperwood branches,

I peer out the window of

an old country inn at smoke

curling from sunrise farms

high on bald green slopes

echoing the sound of the

rushing river deep within my

slowly awakening mind.

Harvest of Rice

Beyond Kabutoyama and a

cherry tree-lined lake

lies a small Kansai town

with many fields of rice

each with a scarecrow

and strings of firecrackers

banging and popping at

intervals keeping crows

at bay and orientalizing

the fate of Tantalus.

These 3 poems originally appeared in my out-of-print book Bamboo in the Sun: Poems of Japan (Kobe, 1983).. They were added to complement my hub Asian Poems. Recently these three poems were translated into Spanish in an online journal www.radikewl.com