In my dream I saw

the spring wind gently shaking

blossoms from a tree;

and even now, though I’m awake,

there’s motion, trembling in my chest.

Quiet mountain hut,

by a rice patch…till a deer’s cry

just outside startles me

and I move…so startling him:

we astonish one another!

“Detached” observer

of blossoms finds himself in time

intimate with them-

so, when they separate from the branch,

it’s he who falls…deeply into grief.

If I settle here,

pine, you be left again

alone, when I

tire of this place and

wander off forever.

We’re both afflicted

by drafts and winds, and spend our days

getting up and lying down:

young bamboo weak at its core

and I, ill and disheartened.