ARISE, O soul, and gird thee up anew,
Though the black camel Death kneel at thy gate;
No beggar thou that thou for alms shouldst sue;
Be the proud captain still of thine own fate!
Consider the auk;
Becoming extinct because he forgot how to fly, and could only walk.
Consider man, who may well become extinct
Because he forgot how to walk and learned how to fly before he thinked.
A caterpillar,
this deep in fall--
still not a butterfly.
Translated by Robert Hass
If Brother Francis pardoned Brother Flea,
There still seems need of such strange charity,
Seeing he is, for all his gay goodwill,
Bitten by funny little creatures still.
A breeze left for a walk
for it
wanted to attend a fair.
A wind engulfed it;
the breeze lost its soul.
If
in the course of a conversation
gaps of silence begin to occur,
spoken words turn silent;
therefore, my eloquent friend,
let's carefully listen
to this silence.
Thirty today, I saw
The trees flare briefly like
The candles on a cake,
As the sun went down the sky,
A momentary flash,
Yet there was time to wish
A bee
staggers out
of the peony.
Translated by Robert Hass
A bat flits
in moonlight
above the plum blossoms.
Translated by Robert Hass
you make the fire
and I’ll show you something wonderful:
a big ball of snow!
