Bonsai of Thought: Ninety-Two

1. The warmth of an embrace...
does it grow or diminish?
What blame lies with the seasons?

2. Standing still in twilight,
I listen intently and hear in the distance...
the prayer-songs of tadpoles.

3. Dreaming of war and war,
one day I was murdered!
In an unfulfilled heart, it's not death but defeat that burns!

4. In the silent midnight, to save his job
our field's scarecrow
goes searching for birds...

5. The one who plants the rice—
looking at his face,
no one can swallow their meal.

6. When the wild geese move
across the water,
poems get written... in the sky.

7. The old hopes are dead today.
The new dreams are parched today.
Yet every spring arrives green...

8. When the storm ravages a bird's nest,
still... the chicks grow hungry,
their famished beaks open... crying out in vain.

9. Bharatanatyam in the breeze...
butterflies in pairs...
from two comes ever more.

10. At a child's death
someone's world—all its pale fog—
falls as clear dewdrops.

11. Dense black clouds
when night falls scatter in fragments
across the blue canopy on the mountain's face.

12. Seeing the rainbow after rain,
I could no longer remember
where the clouds had lived.

13. Come, let us arrange flowers
on the plate of rice.
Come, let's chase away hunger with the warm fragrance of blooms!

14. When night falls... owl or vulture,
in everyone's talons I see
the sharp claws of an eagle!

15. Ah, what marvelous twin rose gardens!
One blooms by day,
the other by night.

16. Does a flower fallen to earth
ever return to its branch?
Can a butterfly fill the flower's emptiness?

17. Ah clouds! Ah clouds!
In some eyes you bring rain,
in others, grain!

18. Such bravado even with this fragile world!
Yet without the slightest care
nothing remains that could be called a jewel!

19. Tree by tree, today—the fire of flowers...
No, no, I was mistaken!
That's a festival of lanterns!

20. In summer's fierce heat
even butterflies calculate their course
as they fly from bloom to bloom!