I turned 70 today. A day like any other day. Showers in the morning. In the afternoon, the rain stopped and the sky brightened, so I went out for a walk. It was one of those spring walks during which one is accompanied by birdsong the entire time, with the choristers unseen. At about 10 o’clock last night this thought occurred to me: “When I wake up tomorrow morning, I will be 70 years old.” I…
In this part of the world, the deciduous trees are empty, save for a few leaves fluttering drily on otherwise bare branches. Gone (at least for now) are the green days of whispering, soughing, and roaring boughs. Passing through a leafless grove on a windy day, one hears the empty branches clacking and clicking against one another high overhead. The trunks and large limbs creak and groan, like the…
Where does one begin when it comes to autumn? And where does one begin when it comes to the poetry of autumn? For some unknown reason, these lines by Ezra Pound (a translation of lines written by Li Po in the 8th Century) suddenly arrive, unbidden: "What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking,/There is no end of things in the heart." (Ezra Pound, "Exile's Letter," in Cathay (Elkin…
One afternoon last week, as I walked along the edge of a grove of pines and maples, I heard a bird's voice up ahead, high in a pine. Not a song or a warble, but two firm, quick calls of the same note, with the sequence repeated three or four times. Then silence. A minute or so later, the two calls were again repeated three or four times, but from another pine, closer this time. The message seemed…
Forty-one years on, I retain very little from my three years of law school. Memories of friendships. And of a love. A las, lost. As for "The Law" itself, only a few scattered phrases remain from all those books and lectures. For instance: "frolic and detour." The concept comes from the law of torts: an employer is not liable for the actions of an employee who engages in activity which is beyond…
Over a lifetime, I have failed to give the moon the attention it deserves. But it is patient and forgiving, despite my faithlessness. Thus, in the first week of this month, as I was out walking at twilight, I happened to glance towards the vanishing sunset, and there it was: a brilliant and pristine white crescent moon, a third of the way up the darkening, but still powder blue, southwestern sky.…
As I have mentioned here in the past, each day I read a poem in the morning and a poem in the evening. This was today's morning poem: Autumn Ends Lost in vacant wonder at how the months flow away in silence, I sit alone in my idle hut, thinking endless thoughts. An old man's cares, like these leaves, are hard to sweep away. To the sound of their rustling I see autumn off once again. Tate Ryūwan…
The swallows have departed. The tall, dry meadow grass rustles in the nearly empty air. Now and then a sparrow suddenly flutters up from beside the path, then flies off toward the trees surrounding the field. Ghostly white tufts of thistle seed float past, rising and falling. Swallows Flown Whence comes that small continuous silence Haunting the livelong day? This void, where a sweetness, so…
This modest (and, of late, fitful) undertaking owes its name to Edward Thomas. I expressed my thanks to him (accompanied by the touching elegy "To E. T.: 1917" written by his friend Walter de la Mare) in my first post here: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 . A month later, I posted this comment about "Adlestrop": "No doubt many of us first encountered Edward Thomas by discovering 'Adlestrop' in an…
Each morning, I read a poem. A long-time habit. I began a recent spring day with this: Tilling the field; From the temple among the trees, The funeral bell tolls. Buson (1716-1784) (translated by R. H. Blyth), in R. H. Blyth, Haiku, Volume 2: Spring (Hokuseido Press 1950), page 161. In his four-volume Haiku , R. H. Blyth collects haiku relating to each season into chapters based upon general…
On a recent afternoon walk, I heard an unseen owl call from somewhere off in the forest: " Hoo-hoo . . . hoo-hoo ." This seemed to be a gentle inquiry, a tentative "How do you do?" After about ten seconds of silence, a crow -- also unseen, but from another part of the forest -- replied emphatically: " Caw-caw-caw ." The meaning of this response seemed less clear. Was it a warning, a threat? But…
Solely by happenstance, this observation surfaced out of my memory during the past week: "The future's uncertain and the end is always near." An unexpected message for the New Year? And who might be the source of this thought? Perhaps Schopenhauer or Leopardi, those cheerful, happy-go-lucky characters? Or, further back in time, should we look to Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius? And what of the poets?…
At Christmas, I turn to Thomas Hardy. (As well as to George Mackay Brown (for instance, " Christmas Poem ": "We are folded all/In a green fable . . .") and R. S. Thomas (a bit astringent, as one might expect, but lovely; for instance, " Blind Noel ": "Yet there is always room/on the heart for another/snowflake to reveal a pattern").) When it comes to Hardy, I invariably visit this: The Oxen…
Most of the leaves have fallen. One day last week -- a proverbial "brilliant autumn day" -- I walked past a grove of big-leaf maples bordering a small glade. The ground beneath the maples was covered with red, russet, and yellow leaves. There was no wind. Now and then, a few of the remaining leaves drifted down. Each one made a soft tick as it landed on the dry, deep leaf-carpet. People are few; A…
Has any poet written as many beautiful and memorable lines as Yeats? I confess that I am biased by circumstances. I discovered the poetry of Yeats at an impressionable age: in my sophomore year of college, in a course titled "Yeats, Pound, and Eliot." I was smitten from the start. Imagine a melancholic, romantic lad, 19 years of age, reading this: "A pity beyond all telling/Is hid in the heart of…
Once again, September. The past few weeks, the afternoons have sometimes been as warm as midsummer. But the leaves -- ah, the leaves: green going to gold, and to brown, amber, orange, and red. Fallen, falling, ready to fall. Before long, they will "Scratch like birds at the windows/Or tick on the road." (Derek Mahon, " Leaves. ") Not quite yet. And where have the swallows gone? Speaking of Derek…
One morning this week, as I walked along a shadowy but sun-dappled path through a grove of trees, I came upon a single golden pine needle hovering vertically in mid-air, at eye-level, above the path. The needle was suspended on a single gossamer thread. Unmoving, it captured the angled morning sunlight of late August. I walked on. A few minutes later, I remembered this (which has appeared here in…
As I am wont to do several times a year, I recently returned to the poetry of Walter de la Mare. At the beginning of last week, I revisited an old favorite: The Bells Shadow and light both strove to be The eight bell-ringers' company, As with his gliding rope in hand, Counting his changes, each did stand; While rang and trembled every stone, To music by the bell-mouths blown: Till the bright…
Over the past two months I have spent much of my reading time moving back and forth within the Spring volume of R. H. Blyth's four-volume Haiku . The set has been with me for more than 40 years. I bought it in a used bookstore in Seattle when I was attending law school. I had discovered Blyth's haiku translations a few years earlier, but finding copies of Haiku to purchase in those pre-internet…
It is that time of year once again: I step out the front door, walk for an hour or so, and return, all the while accompanied by birdsong (occasionally punctuated by a crow's caw-caw-caw from off in the distance, or from directly above -- out of the blue). In the meadows, solitary birds now and then fly up out of the wild grass or hop down a path, voiceless. But the surrounding woods are full of…
All I ask for in life is peace and quiet, accompanied by an occasional fugitive encounter with Beauty and Truth. How does one go about pursuing these elusive will-o'-the-wisps? I have no wisdom to impart on this score. What do I know? I go for a daily walk in the green and blue and parti-colored World. Each day I read one or two poems. I try to pay attention. Above all, I try to be grateful. But…
Each year I grow fonder of the robins who spend the winter here, gathering into small flocks, making their way across the meadows and through the woodlands. I suspect this fondness is partly a product of aging. Growing up in Minnesota, I was always on the lookout for rarer, more colorful birds: cardinals and Baltimore orioles, for instance. Robins were generally regarded as being lovable, but…
"Life passes swiftly, hedged by sorrow;/how long before you've lost it -- a scene like this?" (Su Tung-p'o (1037-1101), " On a Boat, Awake at Night .") One of the pleasures of reading classical Chinese lyric ( shih ) poetry is coming across lovely and evocative lines such as these. This happens frequently. Lines of this sort are not intended to be didactic, edifying, or admonitory. Instead, they…
Human nature being what it is, the world has always been, and will always be, beset with utopian busybodies who have taken leave of their senses. (As ever, I draw a strict distinction between the lower-case "world" in which we find ourselves by historical circumstance, and the upper-case "World" of Beauty, Truth, and Immanence. More on this crucial distinction anon.) I trust, dear readers, that…
" . . . like a dove/That slants unswerving to its home and love." Earlier this week, about an hour before sunset, I was out for a walk, my attention drawn to the sky in the west. The waters of Puget Sound were a dark slate-grey, with a slight undertone of purple. Beyond the Sound, on the horizon, the Olympic Mountains stood in a row. The sky to the east was mostly clear. But directly overhead was…