Learn of the pine from the pine, and of the bamboo from the bamboo. To do so you must leave behind the self, and enter into the object, until its hidden glimmering shows itself and a poem forms of its own accord.
Harvest moon — / walking around the pond / all night long.
Even in Kyoto — hearing the cuckoo's cry — I long for Kyoto.
Henry David Thoreau·1850My life is like a stroll upon the beach, As near the ocean's edge as I can go.
Henry David Thoreau·1854Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.
Albert Camus·1937Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us to die.
