By the poet Saiba
written on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, 1858
I shift my pillow
closer to the
full moon.
Meigetsu no
ho e korobasu
makura kana
— from Japanese Death Poems written by zen monks and haiku poets on the verge of death
compiled with an introduction by Yoel Hoffmann (Tuttle, 1986)
This is reprinted as a review of the book, which does not need any further review than an example of the one of the book's many poems.
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2 comments:
That's one of my favorite books.
Yes, I've admired it for a number of years. My wife bought it for me for Christmas. I kept opening it to the poem I posted. I'd love to hear it chanted in Japanese.
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