New Year’s Eve I stop

by the pond out of habit

only to be stopped

by transparency.

Pure sunlight calmly addressed

my resolute self.

And it broke open.

The restlessness of naked

sunlight is divine.

It was a long kiss—

the blossom detached itself

and fluttered down, down

I look out and ask

why this deep feeling as sleet

turns to snow and back.

My page remains blank.

Sometimes snow, sometimes sleet, sad

but true, sad but true.

Wherever the relative exists, the absolute is there as its correlative. Tanabe Haijime

The Sabbath. The pub

bursts with wild conversation.

It’s so cold outside.

Still, the Absolute

insists it’s Nothing, others

everything. Grounded

in contradiction

the day passes, I give up,

put my book away.

The Great Compassion

of the Absolute: Empty

and also happy.

It’s no tragedy.

I harden my face, go out,

sleet becoming snow.

A dusting of snow

on paths, gardens, and mountains.

Breathe out, in, out, in.

An egret rising

from the flat bay wakes me up

I did not know I

was asleep under

the pine. A white smudge

appears in the air

to disappear. I

am an old man astonished

that I am at all.