1

Our minds buzz like bees
but not the bees' minds.
It's just wings not heart
they say, moving to another flower.

2

The well pit is beneath where the pump shed burned
years ago with a living roar, a fire lion. Down
in the pit, charred timbers, green grass, one burdock,
a vernal pool where frogs live trapped in a universe.

3

I've wasted too much moonlight.
Breast beating. I'll waste no more moonlight,
the moon bullied by clouds drifts west
in her imponderable arc, snared for a half
hour among the wet leaves in the birdbath.

4

After thirty years of work
I take three months off
and wait for the mirror's image to fade.
These chess pieces, slippery with blood.

5

Time eats us alive.
On my birthday yesterday
I was only one day older
though I began 10 million eons ago
as a single cell in the old mud homestead.

—from After Ikkyu