Weekly Contest
Classic poem of the day
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind;
But more advanced, behold with strange surprise
New distant scenes of endless science rise!
So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,
The eternal snows appear already past,
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;
But, those attained, we tremble to survey
The growing labors of the lengthened way,
The increasing prospects tire our wandering eyes,
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those mo...
member poem of the day
In their haiku the Oriental masters of the form frequently used dew as a metaphor for the transience of life. Some of these poets have used dew metaphorically in a jisei (a type of death poem sometimes called a “zen death poem”) … but then I discovered to my surprise that I had used dew in similar ways quite frequently in my own poetry …
This world?
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane’s bill.
— Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Dewdrops suspended on blades of grass
have so little time to shine before dawn;
let the autumn wind not rush too quickly through the field!
— Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This world of dew
is a dew-drop world indeed;
and yet, and yet ...
― Kobayashi Issa, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Both victor and vanquished are
de
