White

No earth, no sky, can be discerned at all,

Only these ceaseless snowflakes: still they fall.

-- Hashin

Snow has obliterated all from sight:

Mountain and moor are now a world of white.

-- Jôsô

All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.

The birds have vanished into the sky,

and now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

until only the mountain remains.

-- Li Po

The baby,open-mouthed, beholds a chase
Of falling cherry-petals: Buddha's face.

-- Kubutsu

ADMONITION FOR SPRING

Look away from the high lonesome hills
So hard on the hard sky since the swift shower;
See where among the restless daffodils
The hyacinth sets his melancholy tower.

Draw in your heart from vain adventurings;
Float slowly, swimmer, slowly drawing breath.
See, in this wild green foam of growing things
The heavy hyacinth remembering death.

-- L.A. MacKay