three points of reference ...

I could write volumes on each one of these pieces, but anything I would or could say would be obliterated by the force of the works themselves. These pieces are larger than words.

from Izumi Shikibu

Lost in thought – even the firefly from the marsh seems to rise out of my body, like my soul
            (trans. Hiroaki Sato & Burton Watson)


Watching the moon
at dawn,
solitary, mid-sky,
I knew myself completely,
no part left out.

            (trans. Jane Hirshfield & Mariko Aratani)



from Dōgen

To study the Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, to forget the self is to awaken into the ten thousand things.
            (trans. Jane Hirshfield)



from Li Po

I Make My Home in the Mountains

You ask why I live in the mountain forest,
and I smile, and am silent,
and even my soul remains quiet:
it lives in the other world
which no one owns.
The peach trees blossom.
The water flows.
            (trans. Sam Hamill)

*

I’m not sure, ultimately, how I’m connected to the planet, but I know I am. I know that my uncle is wind in the trees beyond my porch. When I stand by the river, my grandmother’s voice drifts over stones. When I open a jar of apple butter, my friend is seated in a chair at the table. And maybe we talk, but usually I just listen.

I’m thinking of a line from Wang Wei: “A fisherman’s song carries far past the shore.”

This is true.