Month: October 2014

my apology

/ zdunno03 / 23 Comments

Hello everyone who follows me,

I just want to apologize beforehand if I am late in reading and responding to your posts. There are quite a few of you now that I follow religiously and I know you in turn follow me by our “likes” and comments. I appreciate all of you and though like you I spend a good part of my day reading your writing and viewing your photos &/or artwork (and I truly enjoy that time), I might be a little slow in doing so for the rest of this week and the beginning of next. I must return to NY for one of those in quickly and out even faster visits to go to the Turkish Consulate to get my passport stamped for my work visa. This is my second such quickie visit and will be even more harried than the last one since I’m sqeezing in two very old friends I couldn’t see last time and also some of my family as well as spending more time in The Strand picking up books not only for me but for my good friend Ali that we can’t get here in Turkey. I also intend to eat my fair share of Italian sausage (something I miss terribly here) and the hotel I am staying at is within walking distance of a favorite Thai restaurant of mine so I plan to indulge myself with people/things I have sorely missed these long years I have been away. Some of my family I have not seen for almost 10 years so it will be a long awaited reunion. Hence, the last poem I posted by Tu Mu. If you substitute “what were you doing” for “who were you fighting” than the poem applies beautifully to me.

So please bear with me if I am somewhat absent, ( though I have drafted a few poems to post later from my iPad) but it’s the reading of your posts I may be somewhat delayed in. I tend to do most of my reading from my yahoo inbox rather than The Reader since that is often unreliable, and that inbox fills up pretty quickly. But I don’t lose anything that way and will read them all eventually.

Now to have my last two sessions today at work before I go home to pack, pay some attention to the cat, and catch a few hours sleep before the Petkim driver comes to collect me at 2am for my drive to the airport and the beginning of my journey.

Till later, Len

Sent Far Away by Tu Mu

/ zdunno03 / 4 Comments

These mountains emerald clouds at the far end of distance.
In tonight’s clarity, one sound: a whisper of white snow.

I’m sending thoughts of you a thousand miles of moonlight:
scraps of light along canyon streams, haze of steady rain.

translated by David Hinton

on gardens

/ zdunno03 / 13 Comments

there are words
inadequate
actions
incomprehensible
feelings
misunderstood
some things are best
left alone
to wither
on their own accord
where blossoms
are impossible
to cultivate

To Tzu-an by Yü Hsüan-chi

/ zdunno03 / 5 Comments

A thousand goblets at the farewell feast
can’t dilute my sorrow,
my heart at separation is twisted
in a hundred unyielding knots.
Tender orchids wilt and wither,
return to the garden of spring;
willow trees, here and there,
moor travelers’ boats.
In meeting and parting I lament
the unsettled clouds;
love and affection should learn from the river
in flowing on and on.
I know we won’t meet again
in the season of blossoms,
and I won’t sit by quietly
drunk in my chamber.

translated by Jan W. Walls

A Mountain Walk by Tu Mu

/ zdunno03 / Leave a comment

Climbing far into the cold mountains, the rocky path steepens
and houses grow rare. Up here where white clouds are born,

I stop to sit for a while, savoring maple forests in late light,
frost-glazed leaves lit reds deeper than any spring blossoms.

translated by David Hinton

Autumn Dream by Tu Mu

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

Frosty skies open empty depths of wind.
Moonlight floods fulling-stones clarities.

As the dream ends, I am dying at night:
I am beside a beautiful woman, thoughts

deepening–a leaf trees shed in the dark,
a lone goose leaving borderlands behind.

Then I’m in travel clothes, setting out,
heart and mind all distances beyond sky.

translated by David Hinton