[ARTS]: Big and Little Poetry--free verse, any verse.

[Tai Shi]

Love Making

Daughter wrapped in bright red wool,
For father's work in brilliant blue.
Man Praises wheels of earthenware,
Pearls for their child's blond curly hair,
Because her womanhood is season
Aggrieved in books for eighty dollars
A piece. Voices break in ancient air?
Percentages in offering his poetry,
Nothing less for couplets in his eyes,
Laced with heavy Buddhist chimes,
Silver window Christian now his grief.
Letters of snow, single lines twinkle,
Rhymes for bread, making blood another
Care for mother's way, relentless work,
Their daily marriage never gone astray.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

May first Classic Haiku bought
Books from wisdom stood their time
Less Rhyme, ditto, then remarked.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

At Rest

Sold in planks, $54.93 cases
Of Engineered Oak, old carpet
Torn away, cat destroyed
Remodeled, removed savings

To cut Elm, River Birch,
He is seventy-two, 2023.
Three maples in front yard,
Never cut trees, weeds

Remember new clay
Afte daughter five at school
Moved from Sioux Falls,
To Turtle Creek, he's older,

Dreaming of his fatherhood,
Daughter born in Colorado
Second Valedictorian at West Central,
Then Japan; they seldom see

Books denied. His Ubasoku
Editions gone to seed,
To Goodwill, this is his still,
Ending life full of Zazen

Her childhood. Boxed
In gifts time itself stands,
To Pale Beige, morning still,
Misty ground covered

Wished another year
Home never cut away
Small 1006 sq ft space
They lived upon cut ground,

Oak floor, Wood
Maples carved. Cat gone,
Mother sits alone,
At peace, quiet, lovingly.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

All, all are Welcomed

Please write your poems here
All are welcomed all near, all fair
All solid or think not critics roam
To fear your words, bring tears

Vision comes every year, new
Old reluctant, afraid be solid
Be here, laugh your songs
Of Buddhahood, songs of day,

Dear to hearts of night, of artisans
Not dear, not long of those
Forgotten days, now dear
Bring your tears, your laughter

Light your way, light your path.
All rathe incurred, none so dear,
Remembrance not rath, forgotten
Now brought to mind, brought

From time, art is easy, art more,
More than Freud or Jung
Or Adler, or Skinner or CBT
Gestalts or EBT, bring song

Your majesty, your Loving
Kindness your most Fire Sermons
Giving more than can't, less hurt.
My mother, Miss Emily gave

Single volume, verses heart
Felt, simple I am nobody
Who are you? We are
Someone to bring mirth

Bringer of light simple verses
Iambics, Trochees, more rhythm
More than rhyme, all of depth
Or light, all are welcomed here.

Aphrodite, Sapho, Silf, soft
Women, hard of birth, women, men
Whatever you bring to your own
Muses, gone Greek to Chinese
Women. Men of Kohens, women
Teach us to be strong, or light
Of mindfulness, misused not
Overburdened life, bringer of rain
Bringer of more songs, sing
Reluctant, do ever sitar Proxima
Six Senses star Centuri, closest
Sun, then far 5.7 magnitude,
Your days of operations, therapies,
Any religion, enlightenment
Nothing to do with your gods,
Gods reluctantly, leave judgement
Every home, ever jobs or none
Like me to teach children
Women or men your pain
Your joy, your singleness, purposes
Simply beginner mind, always
Roaming to mountains, streams
Oceans, boat accrues no shoal
Crossing over together shore
You are homeward come at last.

Gassho
sat\lah

[Tai Shi]

Everyone, what I meant to say is you are welcome! Even if you have never written a single line of poetry, try it here. We encourage you! We want to see what you think of the world in poetry, or introspective, look inward, or out, or anywhere. Buddhist or not, just try a little here. Give yourself a voice; write a poem or two.
Gassho
sat/lah

[Meian]

Water splashes

from the sunlit sky

A dove mourns

In the cool breeze.

[emoji120] stlh

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Tai Shi]

Meian, dear member of our Zendo, I heard your cooing bird of Peace, the cool breeze through our White Pine in our front yard

Gassho
TS

[Tai Shi]

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
W. S. Merwin
Merwin in 2003
Merwin in 2003
Born William Stanley Merwin
September 30, 1927
New York City, U.S.
Died March 15, 2019 (aged 91)
Haiku, Hawaii, U.S.
Occupation Poet
Education Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, PA 1944; Princeton University (attended)
Period 1952–2019
Genre Poetry, prose, translation
Notable awards PEN Translation Prize
1969
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1971, 2009
Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry
1990
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
1994
Tanning Prize
1994
National Book Award
2005
United States Poet Laureate
2010
Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award
2013
Spouse Dorothy Jeanne Ferry
Dido Milroy
Paula Dunaway (1983–2017)
Signature
WSMerwin.svg
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation.[1] During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests.

Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1971 and 2009;[2] the National Book Award for Poetry in 2005,[3] and the Tanning Prize—one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets—as well as the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the 17th United States Poet Laureate.[4][5]

Early life

Merwin grew up on this street in Union City, New Jersey, which was renamed for him in 2006.
W. S. Merwin was born in New York City on September 30, 1927. He grew up on the corner of Fourth Street and New York Avenue in Union City, New Jersey, and lived there until 1936, when his family moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania. As a child, Merwin was enamored of the natural world, sometimes finding himself talking to the large tree in his back yard. He was also fascinated with things that he saw as links to the past, such as the building behind his home that had once been a barn which housed a horse and carriage.[6] At the age of five he started writing hymns for his father,[7] a Presbyterian minister.[5]

Career
Early career: 1952–1976
After attending Princeton University in 1952, Merwin married Dorothy Jeanne Ferry, and moved to Spain. During his stay there, while visiting the renowned poet Robert Graves at his homestead on the island of Majorca, he served as tutor to Graves's son. There, he met Dido Milroy, fifteen years his senior, with whom he collaborated on a play and whom he later married and lived with in London. In 1956, Merwin moved to Boston for a fellowship at the Poets' Theater. He returned to London, where he befriended Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. In 1968, Merwin moved to New York City, separating from his wife Dido Milroy, who stayed at their home in France. In the late 1970s, Merwin moved to Hawaii and eventually was divorced from Dido Milroy. He married Paula Dunaway in 1983.[8]

From 1956 to 1957, Merwin was also playwright-in-residence at the Poet's Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts; he became poetry editor at The Nation in 1962. Besides being a prolific poet, he was a respected translator of Spanish, French, Latin and Italian literature and poetry (including Lazarillo de Tormes and Dante's Purgatorio)[9][10] as well as poetry from Sanskrit, Yiddish, Middle English, Japanese and Quechua. He served as selector of poems of the American poet Craig Arnold (1967–2009).[11]

Merwin is known for his poetry about the Vietnam War, and can be included among the canon of Vietnam War-era poets which includes writers Robert Bly, Robert Duncan, Adrienne Rich, Denise Levertov, Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg and Yusef Komunyakaa.[12]

Merwin's early subjects were frequently tied to mythological or legendary themes, while many of his poems featured animals. A volume called The Drunk in the Furnace (1960) marked a change for Merwin, in that he began to write in a more autobiographical way.[13]

In the 1960s, Merwin lived in a small apartment in New York City's Greenwich Village.[6]

Later career: 1977–2019
Merwin's volume Migration: New and Selected Poems won the 2005 National Book Award for poetry.[14]

In 1998, Merwin wrote Folding Cliffs: A Narrative, an ambitious novel-in-verse about Hawaiʻi in history and legend.[15]

The Shadow of Sirius, published in 2008 by Copper Canyon Press, was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.[2]

In June 2010, the Library of Congress named Merwin the seventeenth United States Poet Laureate, to replace the outgoing Kay Ryan.[4][5] He is the subject of the 2014 documentary film Even Though the Whole World Is Burning. Merwin appeared in the PBS documentary The Buddha, released in 2010. He had moved to Hawaii to study with the Zen Buddhist master Robert Aitken in 1976.[16]

In 2010, with his wife Paula, he co-founded The Merwin Conservancy, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving his hand-built, off-the-grid poet's home and 18-acre restored property in Haiku, Maui, which has been transformed from an "agricultural wasteland" to a "Noah's Ark" for rare palm trees, one of the largest and most biodiverse collections of palms in the world.[17]

Merwin's last book of poetry, Garden Time (Copper Canyon Press, 2016), was composed during the difficult process of losing his eyesight. When he could no longer see well enough to write, he dictated poems to his wife, Paula. It is a book about aging and the practice of living one's life in the present. Writing about Garden Time in The New York Times, Jeff Gordinier suggests that "Merwin's work feels like part of some timeless continuum, a river that stretches all the way back to Han Shan and Li Po."[18]

In 2017, Copper Canyon Press published The Essential W. S. Merwin, a book which traces the seven decade legacy of Merwin's poetry, with selections ranging from his 1952 debut, A Mask for Janus, to 2016's Garden Time, as well as a selection of translations and lesser known prose narratives. Merwin's literary papers are held at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The collection consists of some 5,500 archival items, and 450 printed books.[19][20]

Death
Merwin lived on land that was part of a pineapple plantation, on the northeast coast of Maui, Hawaii.[4][5]

W.S Merwin died on March 15, 2019, in his sleep at his home, as reported by his publisher Copper Canyon Press.[21]

Awards
1952: Yale Younger Poets Prize for A Mask for Janus[22]
1954: Kenyon Review Fellowship in Poetry[23]
1956: Rockefeller Fellowship[23]
1957: National Institute of Arts and Letters grant[23]
1957: Playwrighting Bursary, Arts Council of Great Britain[23]
1961: Rabinowitz Foundation Grant[23]
1962: Bess Hokin Prize, Poetry magazine[23]
1964/1965: Ford Foundation Grant[23]
1966: Chapelbrook Foundation Fellowship[23]
1967: Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize, Poetry magazine[23]
1969: PEN Translation Prize for Selected Translations 1948–1968[24]
1969: Rockefeller Foundation Grant[23]
1971: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Carrier of Ladders (published in 1971)[24]
1973: Academy of American Poets Fellowship[23]
1974: Shelley Memorial Award[23]
1979: Bollingen Prize for Poetry, Yale University Library[23]
1987: Governor's Award for Literature of the state of Hawaii[24]
1990: Maurice English Poetry Award[25]
1993: The Tanning Prize for mastery in the art of poetry[24]
1993: Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for Travels[24]
1994: Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award[24]
1999: Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress, a jointly-held position with Rita Dove and Louise Glück[26]
2005: National Book Award for Poetry for Migration: New and Selected Poems[14][22]
2004: Golden Wreath Award of the Struga Poetry Evenings Festival in Macedonia[26]
2004: Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award[26]
2008: Golden Plate Award, American Academy of Achievement[27]
2009: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Shadow of Sirius (published in 2008)[28]
2010: Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement[29]
2010: United States Poet Laureate[4]
2013: Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award[30]
Other accolades
Merwin's home town honored him in 2006 by renaming a local street near his childhood home W. S. Merwin Way.[6]

Bibliography
Main article: W. S. Merwin bibliography

[Tai Shi]

The reason I posted the Wikipedia article (free encyclopedia) was that Merwin is sometimes overlooked by Buddhists as one of the greatest Buddhist poets in English of the last 100 years, and I love his work. I don't see people here on Treeleaf Zendo exploring his work.
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

What is humility? Humility is to order Merwin's small collected work while realizing he is already my teacher, that in that last question I had costed, not really explored everything except William Carlos Williams' work, realizing women make their work substantial. I had understood Hilda Doolittle's work was the place to start compare Hilda Doolittle's work with William Carlos Williams's work, realizing that William's work is substantial, reviewing Roethke's work in his life because like me he had learned to give himself to poetry never "got sober," he fell into his own swimming pool while drunk in front his lady friend had drowned while had he earned the Pulitzer after writing The North American Sequence, wasted, I had drowned, the right thing for me "getting sober at age 35 years 10 months and 17 days, and 10 hours the exact moment I'd entered our front seat of our car ito do the right thing, having done all the right things except I realized the inequality of this school, a glorified high school exploiting new teachers work against the law when I was doing the right thing by executing my responsibilities, and later realizing I would have been doing the right thing with study and effort in World Literature, and realizing Hotchkiss never had done the right things, he had womanized and might have had a problem with alcohol and that he had cheated and was found out and though I never drank, had forgotten too much of the best of my teaching, was too old to teach with enthusiasm, so I gave up teaching slowly devoted and realized I did not want to be a Christian Lay person, that I had fudged it and done my lay membership without thourlay studying the last six precepts realizing the first ten were wha I had to work on with honesty and anger, and realizing anger was because I had not been honest, so it was time to go back and study what I needed to be an adequate lay member, those six precepts, and watching Meian to learn the best way to present the lay membership was first to memorize all of the introductions utilizing all the helps I needed to be a good Lay member. That was the first thing in order to admit that Jishin had something there, and Introduction to Creative Writing was the first order of business, as I went to Jundo, and I worked best by announcing my best intensions to Jundo then execute my intentions with honesty that I could study both at the same time, because I had fulfilled requirements in both well before realizing I was an excellent student well before I received my BA, and the registrar had realized I could have graduated with honors and accepted the most difficult with knowledge I knew the math required to have made up that F so fudged and gave me my BA knowing what an outstanding student, realizing that IVCC was a dishonest institution as Kroaque had cheated on hi nephew by pressuring my into giving a passing grade, tha everywhere I had been the teacher well beyond what they deserved, what I wanted was to write in the first place, so study to be a priest while a little mke up was in order, that I might never complete priesthood before I died, because I know my heart is weak and doing everything I can to optimize life, an I might complete the priesthood never taking ordination because that is Marjorie's wish so being satisfied with Ubasoku while being the best Ubasoku I can be knowing all the background as others might already know, so admiring Meian because she is an accomplished woman and following in Shoenan's steps is what I really what I want to do and asking to begin attending Birdsong to really learn, and maybe only doing Loving Kindness because it is the right thing to do making me a better Ubasoku. That is the gosal being who I really am so I can fulfill my destiny to be the best while never being recognized, and beginning to show up at Zazenkai when I can because it is the right thing to do and that it might actually be easier than doing Birdsong, and that at the same time it will be harder because it is treeleaf and yeet I already know part of what it takes to be a good priest, that even Kokuu doesn't know the literature you do, but no comparing to others, that is the end goal doing what is right because it is the right thing to do knowing I might never complete my destiny to be a good priest, so being a good Ubasoku. That is enough. I am certain this this to a close with proper transition to do right things simply because are the right things to do. Thank you Jundo for giving me a destiny of being honest and mild in manners.
Gassho
sat/lah

[Tai Shi]

I sat twice in cold May crisp
Air, beneath my window,
Much happens as birds wake
To song, life moves me into life
More of my tea, which I shall warm
Again, flavor nearly lost in Zazen

Gassho
sat, lah
Taishi

[Tai Shi]

Winging your Destinations

Arrival of daughter, I sit zazen.
Mother wonders, "Will music
Call?" My best friend waits,
Speaks of Saturday's Creation
From Missouri, your voice,
St Louis, thoughtful gratitude
Said in accolades, seas of Coral.
Forever grasping deep breath,
After breath. Companion givers,
Your womanhood in Millions
Of stars, vacuous galaxies,
Matter devoid of desire.
Founders, luminous is nature,
Inquisitive labor, enlightened
Life your neighbor, vision
Of Requiem. Lucid difficulty,
Desire pours into your vessels,
Flames in books. Wisdom
Harvested, given virtue,
Sacred bird, or empty swan,
Birds in our Maples, East
Window, child of equanimity,
Invisible are Pearls. Thoughtful
Vision of Solemn imperfections,
My insidias gift is your freedom.

Gassho
sat, lah
Tai Shi

[Tai Shi]

I have thought conditions should be stated for some time so here are conditions so stated, and remember you may publish as many times here as you like. I plan at your digressions, or an publication or a book. We may publish no book at all. These conditions apply to poetry or writing here and anywhere I take care of writing. Criticism and
remarks of professionals is limited. If you would like to contribute your own work, you can do so at will as I might contribute contents that is only in part or complete, but only if you like just your publications. At this point I have I have no title. I would announce any book, and subject to your approval. If we do we so, no cost to you. I choose a title reflecting a Treeleaf anthology, and we publish through Amazon's free service at no cost to you. You, of course, keep full copyright and take no profit with Treeleaf Zendo. This is just for fun, and we may clear with Jundo first. I have wanted for some time to represent our Zendo in poetry and writing. I would be credited only as Editor, but it would be up to you to make sure your poetry is LETTER AND PUNCTUATION PERFECT or not ,BECAUSE, we will not change it. Just copy and paste or leave here as is, and make sure language not obscene, and you provide a small remark giving your permission if needed. The only customers here would be our Zendo so any profit would be given to Treeleaf Zendo if published here and not here. We can make no profit here. It is so all money goes back to you, not for profit here-- no money for Kindle books at all--it's, your waiver to Treeleaf tmake only collection of your work and no claim. Limit is two (2) poems if published, limit in threads as many times as you like. If you like only one (1) in any publication, okay. Amazon gives back 70% and keeps 30% and of course in you waiver as you would allow it. Your copyright is given or implied. No price, and cover and design entirely with stock methods if any book. We make this a free book on Kindle, and only once in copyright page. If free, Amazon takes no profit for any Kindle! If this a project you should consider--only a consider this. Good for a one time venture? Jundo, please state your opinions I'm subject to the same rules, so there is no pay to Jundo or me; only one or two poems in any book. All of you may publish all your work here because you retain all copyright stated or unstated. My work before and after is my own work entirely except where cited. Two poems in any book that is submit to Treelea as mine, and you state your opinions here, subject to your entire waiver, copy or writing here, and any revisions. I give my permission as free editor. I take nothing, just for fun. If we do this I make mine, my work only as in my poetry, and I make any other books mine, my own books to do as I please, are are yours. Any other publishing is only in part, in my own poetry only my work. Even and any of these conditions of course apply to any writer here and elsewhere in poetry or other writings. You may publish any and all poems as many times as you like here. You may edit as many times AS YOU LIKE. Treeleaf Zendo Poetry thread is free, and I am editor of my writing, as you are of your writing. You may publish any and all poetry as many times as you like, so long here is not obscene. I make winn no changes in your poetry.
Gassho
Deep Bows
sat/ lah
Tai Shi

[CamilaDeOliveira]

A few short ones:

Raindrops

Raindrops
Like piano notes
What a wonderful
Symphony Of Peace




Let Go

Petals Fall Gently
Petals Gently Grow
In The Garden Of Gentleness
Nothing
To Let Go.



Little Bird

I tried to save
A little bird
From the cat’s hungry mouth
Next morning
He died alone
I died too.




No News

No News in the News
Asuras and Devas
Dragons and Hungry Ghosts
Tigers and Demons
Rolling in The Wheel Of Time
I Sit with All Of Them

Gassho
SatLah

[Tai Shi]

So I write my Poetry

I've written many times.
As I love flowers and orchids,
My mind is free of blemish,
As my face is my face
As I see myself ordinary
That is who I am,
I am wonderful
Plain or handsome with my
Clothing on as as I may
Write beauty, and not
So beautiful, life short
I take heed to not squander
My life, my end of life
Stiven to awaken, that's
Just me, that's just me.

Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi