Zen poems

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“Harvest moon:
around the pond I wander
and the night is gone.”

― Matsuo Basho

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With this and that
I tried to keep the bucket together,
and then the bottom fell out.
Where water does not collect,
the moon does not dwell.

-Adachi Chiyono (1223-1298)

There's another version of this at https://orderengagedbuddhists.com/20...of-the-bucket/ which says this about the poem, "So we need to allow our bucket to break open, to allow our minds to simply let go of the ideas we are holding onto. We hold onto our ideas so tightly that we are blinded to anything else except our fabricated views of reality. Take a deep breath, calm down. Allow life to be what it is rather than what we want it to be." Perhaps like the previous poem?

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My own poem, Zen style:

Spring pond
Narcissus nods to the moon
In such a breeze

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All along this road
not a single soul—only
autumn evening

Basho

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Lost in the woods
Only the sound of a leaf
Falling on my hat

-Tagami Kikusha

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On Non-Dependence of Mind

Coming, going, the waterbirds
don’t leave a trace,
don’t follow a path.

Dogen

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Cold cliffs, more beautiful the deeper you enter—
Yet no one travels this road.
White clouds idle about the tall crags;
On the green peak a single monkey wails.
What other companions do I need?
I grow old doing as I please.
Though face and form alter with the years,
I hold fast to the pearl of the mind.

- Hanshan
Tr. Burton

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Trailing on the wind,
The smoke from Mount Fuji Melts into the sky.
So too my thoughts—
Unknown their resting place.

-Saigyo

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Winds Of Autumn

Even in a person
most times indifferent
to things around him
they waken feelings
the first winds of autumn

-Saigyo

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A poem for this time of year, although not sure about the born again bit.

A telling analogy for life and death:
Compare the two of them to water and ice.
Water draws together to become ice,
And ice disperses again to become water.
Whatever has died is sure to be born again;
Whatever is born comes round again to dying.
As ice and water do one another no harm,
So life and death, the two of them, are fine.

Hanshan