I respectfully disagree with your notion that Ryokan
may have had doubts about his poetry and or poetry in general. My interpretation: his poem addressed attachment. Apparently, I may need to work on my responses.👷🏼
Rooks hold a very special place in my heart. As children, on our twenty minute walk home from the village school each day, with the sun already sinking from the cold winter sky, we would often see great flocks of rooks flying to their roosts. Their voices are particularly evocative of the feeling of going home, to warmth and soup and Bagpuss (or Ivor the Engine); of a very special kind of safety.
Then, for years, there were no flocks. But they have begun to return, here, and I couldn't be more pleased.
Ryokan and the Rooks
I respectfully disagree with your notion that Ryokan
may have had doubts about his poetry and or poetry in general. My interpretation: his poem addressed attachment. Apparently, I may need to work on my responses.👷🏼
Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain
BY LI BAI
TRANSLATED BY SAM HAMILL
The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
after Ryokan
who claims
that my mountain
is a mountain?
when you realize
there are no mountains
then we can speak together
about mountains.
This is a lovely piece.
Rooks hold a very special place in my heart. As children, on our twenty minute walk home from the village school each day, with the sun already sinking from the cold winter sky, we would often see great flocks of rooks flying to their roosts. Their voices are particularly evocative of the feeling of going home, to warmth and soup and Bagpuss (or Ivor the Engine); of a very special kind of safety.
Then, for years, there were no flocks. But they have begun to return, here, and I couldn't be more pleased.