National Poetry Month

The village has disappeared in the evening mist
And the path is hard to follow.
Walking through the pines,
I return to my lonely hut. 
The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away, and the sky is clear again.
If your heart is pure, then all things in your world are pure.
Abandon this fleeting world, abandon yourself,
Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the Way.
--Ryokan Taigu

Ryokan was a monk who left his monastery after a many years, when the master died. He was offered the abbot's seat, but instead went on a pilgrimage wandering all over Japan. In his middle age, he came back to his native village, and spent the rest of his life there, living in a cottage in the mountains. He meditated, danced for food, played games with local children and geishas, and composed spontaneous poems. In his old age, he met a nun named Teishin, and they fell in love. They exchanged many poems.


Was it really you
I saw,
Or is this joy
I still feel
Only a dream? -Teishin

In this dream world
We doze
And talk of dreams -
Dream on, dream on,
As much as you wish. -Ryokan

Here with you
I could remain
For countless days and years,
Silent as the bright moon
We gazed at together. - Teishin

If your heart
Remains unchanged,
We will be bound as tightly
As an endless vine
For ages and ages. -Ryokan

After that, Teishin didn't respond for some time. So he wrote:

Have you forgotten me
Or lost the path here?
Now I wait for you
All day, every day.
But you do not appear. -Ryokan

The moon, I'm sure,
Is shining brightly
High above the mountains,
But gloomy clouds
Shroud the peak in darnkess. -Teishin

You must rise above
The gloomy clouds
Covering the mountaintop.
Otherwise, how will you
Ever see the brightness? -Ryokan

When Ryokan was dying, Teishin came to be with him at the moment of death. They again exchanged a few poems. ON HIS DEATHBED.

"When, when?" I sighed.
The one I longed for
Has finally come;
With her now,
I have all that I need. -Ryokan

We monastics are said
To overcome the realm
Of life and death -
Yet I cannot bear the
Sorrow of our parting. -Teishin

Everywhere you look
The crimson leaves
Scatter -
One by one,
Front and back. -Ryokan

And his last words were:

My legacy -
What will it be?
Flowers in spring,
The cuckoo in summer,
And the crimson maples
Of autumn...