My body, now close to fifty years of age, has become an old tree that bears bitter peaches, a snail which has lost its shell, a bagworm separated from its bag; it drifts with the winds and clouds that know no destination. Morning and night I have eaten traveler's fare, and have held out for alms a pilgrim's wallet.
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Genj?an no Fu ("Prose Poem on the Unreal Dwelling") in Donald Keene, Anthology of Japanese Literature, p. 374 (Translation: Donald Keene)Matsuo Basho
Wearily have the years passed, I know; wearily to the pale watcher on the hill who has been so long gazing for the daybreak; wearily to the anxious multitudes who have been waiting for his tidings below. Often has the cry gone up through the darkness, " Watcher, what of the night?" and often has the disappointing answer come, " It is night still; here the stars are clear above me, but they shine afar, and yonder the clouds lower heavily, and the sad night winds blow." But the time shall come, and perhaps sooner than we look for it, when the countenance of that pale watcher shall gather into intenser expectancy, and when the challenge shall be given, with the hopefulness of a nearer vision, " Watcher, what of the night?" and the answer will come, " The darkness is not so dense as it was; there are faint streaks on the horizon's verge; mist is in the valleys, but there is a radiance on the distant hill. It comes nearer — that promise of the day. The clouds roll rapidly away, and they are fringed with amber and gold. It is, it is the blest sunlight that I feel around me — Morning! It is Morning!"
William Morley Punshon
Rain-diamonds, this winter morning, embellish the tangle of unpruned pear-tree twigs; each solitaire, placed, it appearrs, with considered judgement, bears the light beneath the rifted clouds — the indivisible shared out in endless abundance.
Denise Levertov
Guided by His wisdom, strong in His strength, there maybe for you struggle and suffering, the darkness and the storm. "The disciple is not above His Master." There may be weeping that shall endure for a night, but joy shall come in the morning. If the night cometh, so also the morning, "a morning without clouds," the morning of an eternal day.
Mark (educator) Hopkins
I was walking down Fifth Avenue today and I found a wallet, and I was gonna keep it, rather than return it, but I thought: "Well, if I lost a hundred and fifty dollars, how would I feel?" And I realized I would want to be taught a lesson.
Emo Philips
We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.
Franz Kafka
Basho, Matsuo
Basie, Count
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