The Weather-Cock Points SouthOne by one I begin to hear some pattern, only a smaller one maybe. But one by one I discern a rhythm emerging from the outer leaves. Then begin to flower. Flower and begin to burn in the low white moonlight. And swing.
I put your leaves aside,
One by one:
The stiff, broad outer leaves;
The smaller ones,
Pleasant to touch, veined with purple;
The glazed inner leaves.
One by one
I parted you from your leaves
Until you stood up like a white flower
Swaying slightly in the evening wind.
White flower,
Flower of wax, of jade, of unstreaked agate;
Flower with surfaces of ice,
With shadows faintly crimson.
Where in all the garden is there such a flower?
The stars crowd through the lilac leaves
To look at you.
The low moon brightens you with silver.
The bud is more than the calyx.
There is nothing to equal a white bud,
Of no colour, and of all,
Burnished by moonlight,
Thrust upon by a softly-swinging wind.
ON INTO WINTER
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I had thought to end the autumn season with Kigin’s “shape of the wind”
hokku, but a reader in Japan then sent me a new verse that seemed quite
appropriate...
3 weeks ago

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