Moments:
Midnight Frost
sky darkens
above the quiet village
waiting for northern lights
Long before dawn, I often take a peek out the window at the sleeping village below. Occasionally, I sit on a bench in my yard late at night. In the dark’s mystery and stillness, everything slows down, all boundaries fade. How much is lost to exhaustion and screen light. In his travel sketches, Matsuo Bashō writes:
I visited the outer shrine of Ise one evening just before dark. The first gate of the shrine was standing in the shadow, and the lights were glimmering in the background. As I stood there, lending my ears to the roar of pine trees upon distant mountains, I felt moved deep in the bottom of my heart.
In the utter darkness
of a moonless night,
A powerful wind embraces
The ancient cedar trees.
Dusk and dawn
Plowed fields, frozen thistles
Myriad shapes and textures
Fading into
Even in shifting light, in wonder
Staying still, together
And just as in the night, at the moment of dawn, the morning star shines forth, bright and brilliant, even so, whatever grounds there are for making merit productive of a future birth, all these do not equal a sixteenth part of the liberation of mind by loving-kindness. The liberation of mind by loving-kindness surpasses them and shines forth, bright and brilliant.
Mettābhāvanāsutta (Iti 27)
Translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi
In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon
crisp air
migrating birds call
pierces the stars
Mountain storm!
Don’t blow so hard
at night on my journey.
I sleep on one sleeve
of my white robe.
Translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi
Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan
“Homeward Bound”
歌川広重 Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858)
Introduction and Commentaries by Sherman E. Lee
The Sketchbooks of Hiroshige
Midnight frost
I’d like to borrow
the scarecrow’s coat
Translated by David Young
Moon Woke Me Up Nine Times: Selected Haiku of Basho
perhaps a little rest
will find its way
to those in need
spring day
in the midst of winter
