not worth trying
to salvage
what is lost
pay the two dollars
and move on
resignation
some things we meet
we should
understand
that there are
some things
we meet
in life
we will never
understand
pay the two dollars
not worth trying
to salvage
what is lost
pay the two dollars
and move on
letting go
you can’t keep
what doesn’t belong
to you
just let it
go
a tanka: vanishing breed
ancient dinosaur
too sensitive for this world
with regret in heart
goes lumbering off to lie
with his own vanishing breed
After by Robert Creeley
I’ll not write again
things a young man
thinks, not the words
of that feeling.
There is no world
except felt, no
one there but
must be here also.
If that time was
echoing, a vindication
apparent, if flesh
and bone coincided–
let the body be.
See faces float
over the horizon let
the day end.
from The Man’yoshu: Otomo No Yakamochi
The world is never
any more than just this—
I knew it all along,
but an aching heart
is still hard to bear.
translated by Ian Hideo Levy