“The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human individual’s.”

The woman I live with, the former Rosemary Dattolico, has a mother who believes that we are not properly using punishment as a deterrent to crime. It is her view that many punishments now on the books are not effective, particularly the firing squad. She opposes the firing squad because it is too quick and doesn’t hurt enough.

“They should try things out,” the mother says. “Say, you take two or three of these savages up to Central Park and put them in the cage with the leopards.”

She suspects everybody and forgives nobody. To her, every chance encounter out in the streets is a chance to be mugged. The other day, shopping in Queens, she saw three teenage boys at a bus stop. She folded her arms and hugged her purse to her midsection. The teenagers stared at her.

“Ma, do you have to do this?” the former Rosemary…

not alone
as long as the moon
looks down
on you
on me
though far apart
as I look up
your eyes too
are there

I remember when I was young
reading alone in an empty hall,
again and again refilling the lamp with oil,
never minding then how long the winter night was.

translated by Hiroaki Sato & Burton Watson

A cold wind blows from the far sky. . .
What are you thinking of, old friend?
The wild geese never answer me.
Rivers and lakes are flooded with rain.
. . .A poet should beware of prosperity,
Yet demons can haunt a wanderer.
Ask an unhappy ghost, throw poems to him
Where he drowned himself in the Mi-lo River.

translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu

You write out my poems, filling monastery walls,
and I crowd these door-screens here with yours.

Old friend, we never know where it is we’ll meet–
we two duckweed leaves adrift on such vast seas.

translated by David Hinton

light creeps in
no turning back
another day
another beginning

Tom: “You know it don’t take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?”