Sunday, July 13, 2008

Basho


Shadows, smoke
The long night of dreaming
Immersion, oblivion
Dry land walkabout
Shapes brush past
The cheek is numb cold
Smoke & shadows!
A passing away.
The sun. she rises.
Breathe! Beauty! Form
Shadows. Submerged. Engulfed.
Darkness. Comprehending not.
Finding the light pinpoint.
Up from the depths

Struggle

Into…

Golden leaves of a sycamore tree.

I am a ghost.
I am but a butterfly
Dreaming of you.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Books and Time


I just got back from sorting my father's something 4000 books in order to sell some for cash. Quite the job. Dad was indeed a bibliophile of the first order and though he knew much and read much he also collected much that he did not read.

It has given me pause. I enjoy music, games, books, movies, play, gardening, sport, cooking... so many things. Do I need them all? Most of the time I think of life as a banquet (where most poor suckers are starving) but I'm beginning to think my time too is limited. What do I need to read, or need to do, or what will I never look at again? That extra copy of Hemingway? Junk. The third translation of Dante (or the fourth or the fifth)? Junk. Dostoevsky? Books on Cicero? Why keep all this stuff around? I'm never going to read it. And in the time left I had best get cracking on those things that interest me most.

Wake up call.

There be dragons!