Early Spring Blossoms
photography by Lisa Ernst
A branch snaps under snow
waking me from a dream of the cherries
flowering on Yoshino
—Buson
A Dream of Cherry Blossoms
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Category Archives: Poetry
Yet the Lotus Blooms
this world
is full of needles and thorns …
yet lotus blooms
Kobayashi Issa
Water and Ice
Frozen Water with Reflection
All beings by nature are Buddha,
As ice by nature is water.
Apart from water there is no ice;
Apart from beings, no Buddha.
How sad that people ignore the near
And search for truth afar:
Like someone in the midst of water
Crying out in thirst.
– Hakuin
Winter is Now
Winter solitude –
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.
-Basho
Foggy Winter
The Rain
Before dawn, not yet light
crickets touch the dark
with their soft sounds
Rain drops, slow and steady
tap the leaves, fall to the ground
So close, unbound by walls
My skin is dry
but the rain soaks me through.
– Lisa Ernst
Peony with Rain photography by Lisa Ernst
A Single Family
In a moonlit night on a spring day,
The croak of a frog
Pierces through the whole cosmos and turns it into
a single family!
-Chang Chiu-ch’en
Frog in Spring
Abandon This Fleeting World
The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away,
and the weather is clear again.
If your heart is pure, then all things in your world are pure.
Abandon this fleeting world, abandon yourself,
Then the moon and flowers will guide you along the way.
– Ryokan
Reelfoot Lake Lotus
photography by Lisa Ernst
Dying to This Moment
In dying to this moment,
We lose ourselves,
but gain everything.
And as Rumi eloquently puts it:
When you lose all sense of self the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.
A Flock of Egrets
– photography by Lisa Ernst
Stay
Incense still lit
sweet jasmine
invites me to stay.
My body had left
but my heart can’t stray.
Back on the cushion yet
obscured in the clouds
sadness like
softly falling
drops of rain.
So steady and clear
thunder far away
stillness so deep
soon nothing remains.
As the incense burns out
a smile lights my face.
– Lisa Ernst
Oregon Rain
photography by Lisa Ernst
The Moon at The Window
Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut only to discover there was nothing to steal.
Ryokan returned and caught him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.”
The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.
Ryoken sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, “I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon.”
He wrote this haiku:
The Thief
left it behind –
The moon at the window
Moon on Lake
photograhy by Lisa Ernst
The Lotus Blooms in The Mud 