Short Poems

The water is so cold,
The gull can hardly go to sleep.

Oh, grave-mound, move!
My wailing is the autumn wind.

Will you not call on me in my loneliness?
A paulownia leaf has fallen.

The busybody (banned as sexist, demeaning to older women) who lives next door called my daughter a tomboy (banned as sexist) when she climbed the jungle (banned; replaced with " rain forest " ) gym. Then she had the nerve to call her an egghead and a bookworm (both banned as offensive; replace with " intellectual " ) because she read fairy (banned because suggests homosexuality; replace with " elf " ) tales.

Klingt im Wind ein Wiegenlied,
Sonne warm herniedersieht,
Seine Ähren senkt das Korn,
Rote Beere schwillt am Dorn,
Schwer von Segen ist die Flur —
Junge Frau, was sinnst du nur?

" I lift my lamp beside the golden door. "
More golden now than ever; don't ask why.
Just list your assets, where you can get more,
and who you know. No others need apply.

Footsteps like water hollow
the broad curves of stone
ascending, descending
century by century.
Who can say if the last
to climb these stairs
will be journeying
downward or upward?

Many, many times I've thought about arming myself against barbarians. But I couldn't decide whether a barbarian was someone I wouldn't recognize, or whether it was someone I couldn't understand.
Either way, I believe I'd end up with too many barbarians.
I believe if I need an enemy to protect myself from, it's better to have a particular enemy — one I'd know was a threat.
But if I recognized that threat, wouldn't that be something familiar? I've got the feeling I'd be contravening myself.

'Why speaks the king of the tomb? Ossian! the warrior has failed! Joy meet thy soul, like a stream, Cathmor, friend of strangers! My son, I hear the call of years; they take my spear as they pass along. Why does not Fingal, they seem to say, rest within his hall? Dost thou always delight in blood? In the tear of the sad? No: ye dark-rolling years, Fingal delights not in blood. Tears are wintry streams that waste away my soul. But, when I lie down to rest, then comes the mighty voice of war. It awakes me, in my hall, and calls forth all my steel.

Across a pleasant field a rill unseen
Glides from a fountain, nor does aught betray
Its presence, save a tint of lovelier green,
And flowers that scent the air along its way.
Thus silently should charity attend
Those who in want's drear chambers pine and grieve;
No token should reveal the aid we lend,
Save the glad looks our welcome visits leave.