she plants rice seedlings in the direction of her crying baby on the paddy bund -after Issa . the arrow's shaft points straight at the heart of a doe suckling a fawn -after Risshi . helpless in the autumn wind a firefly still crawls away from me -after Issa

Two photographs by Graciela Iturbide, out of a tremendous exhibit at the International Center of Photography, in New York City. “El señor de los pájaros, Nayarit, México,” 1985 and “Ritual, Benarés, India,” 1998.

mosquito larva ascends to the new moon sky -after Issa . the servant buries the body in secret -after Mitatsu . deep in the mountains he stains the grass with blood -after Bashō . planting rice she moves toward her crying infant on the bund -after Kisha

the old woman plucks a flower to blow her nose . ink and sweat on the face of a child doing lessons . from the treetop a cicada calls to a dog -after Issa

in the temple a snake has shed its skin -after Issa

Gary Snyder

Josef Albers / Mountain Journey, Tamzunchale, Jacala, Mexico, n.d.

Cy Twombly, Tangiers, Morocco, 1952-53 (by Robert Rauschenberg)

Cy Twombly / North African Sketchbook, 1952-53

Cy Twombly / North African Sketchbook, 1953

A book of clouds... ☁ Unkashū Kōrin Furuya, 1903 👁↓👁 archive.org/details/unka...

Albert Pinkham Ryder / The Toilers of the Sea, ca. 1880-85 I remember seeing this painting when I was young

k + h ∞ h + k

Charles Nègre / Chathédrale de Chartres, 1855 (for my sister, who fell in love with Chartres Cathedral)

Brice Martin / Untitled, 1973-79 (for @mrprudence.bsky.social)

Cy Twombly / Untitled [Archeological Inscriptions North African Trip] ca. 1952

Charles Nègre / The Angel of the Resurrection on the Roof of Notre-Dame, Paris, 1853 for my sister, who just returned from France

I do not wear a single piece of metal on my belt, nor do I carry anything but a sack on my shoulder. -Bashō, from The Records of a Weather-exposed Skeleton (after Nobuyuki Yuasa)

Barbara Hepworth / Lotus, 1973

Cy Twombly / Celtic Boat (Gaeta), 1994

Cy Twombly / Lepanto I, 1996

Music for 5 voices (or the flowering sequence of the widow flower) J.G Meijer Bloei van Knautia sylvatica, 1904

I think this is a pretty good description of what a poem is (from Eliot Weinberger, 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei): ‘It is a thing, forever itself, inseparable from its language.’

Combed in neat order By the first shower Of winter — Thick plumage of a kite. -Kyorai A storm having passed, fallen leaves Have settled themselves on the ground. -Bashō (tr. Nobuyuki Yuasa)

Lately, my life has become an ocean of words—nothing but words, words, words to the vast horizon. This has me longing to just look, just see.

from Lore & Legends of North Malabar (Elayavoor & Kumar)

alone in a dream or on paper -Keith Waldrop

. . . <sabi> is the subjective element, deeply buried in the objective element of the poem . . . -Nobuyuki Yuasa

Locked firmly by a heavy bar — this wooden door under the winter moon. -Kikaku (after Nobuyuki Yuasa)

What do I care about anything when I can lie on the bed and pull the past over me like a blanket?

For this night you could still rest here with me under green tree cover. We have ripe apples, sweet chestnuts, a store of fresh cheese and now far away, the villas’ peaked rooftops smoke and shadows from the mountains, greater, fall. -Virgil, from Ecologue I (tr. Kristina Chew)

Gary Snyder

Dreamed an old poet said to me, “Poetry is simply looking at things with love.”

from Lore & Legends of North Malabar (Elayavoor & Kumar)

Gary Snyder

'The Malayalis, like the Hindus generally, are totally devoid of the historical spirit.' -Malabar Gazeteer, 1908

where my neighbor sits to eat, a leaf spoon

Running shallow with a year’s end sound: river rapids. -Arimaru (tr. Yoel Hoffmann) death poem, 1703