Hiro Protagonist

Cool autumn winds greet
A special day for a friend--
His Birthday, Birthweek.

The day draws nearer.
A celebration of sorts,
A friend gets older...

CXLVI The Firefly

Remember, you come from among rotted weeds, How dare you fly near the light of the sun? You are not really bright enough to make books legible; You can only make specks on the other side of the curtain; After the rain, you shimmer at the edge of the forest. When winter comes with severe frost, Scattered and afraid, where can you go?
                           -- Tu Fu (A.D. 712 - 770)

from "When, from the spring, the stream"

My distant love, for you, my
          whole body aches
and I can find nothing to heal it
          but in your call
          that has as bait
soft love behind curtain or
in orchard with the mate
          I long for.

That chance refused me forever, it's
          no wonder I burn.
There was never fairer lady, God
         couldn't want one,
Christian, Jewess, or Saracen.
The man who wins even part of her love
          is fed on mana.

No end to my body's desire
          her I love most.
I'm afraid my will will cheat me, over-
          take me with lust;
for that pain is sharper than thorns and cured
          only with joy.
I want pity from no one for a pain
          I would share with no man . . . .

                           Jaufre Rudel
                           Translated from Provencal by Paul Blackburn

from sci.lang.japan FAQ -
Where does the name Japan come from?

The origin of this word is mysterious. Some people say that `Chipangu' used by Marco Polo is not the origin of `Japan'. It is said that "Japan" came from Malaysian `Jih-pun' or something similar, which came from the southern Chinese dialect reading of `Nippon'. Others say that when Marco Polo visited China, Chinese pronunciation was close enough to modern Mandarin that the character for "day/sun" was a retroflex fricative, something like the "Z" in "Zaza Gabor," or "j" and "r" pronounced simultaneously and held for a syllable. The character for "origin/root/bookscroll" was read something like "pun" (as in modern Mandarin, though it sounds more like the English word "bun" to English speakers), so Marco Polo did the best he could in Italian with what sounded to him like "jrjrrrpun". The weakest part of this account is the attribution to M. Polo; perhaps it was somebody who came along later?

Edited from a post by Bart Mathias.

Stars, Stars, and more Stars--
To be surrounded by Stars.
Space Travel is great.

"It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptation."
--Walter Bagehot, English editor and economist (1826-1877)

Dislocation (or Strangled by the Phone Cord)

How odd it now feels after all this time,
After the change of so many moons,
To be back on some strand near the
Place we both left off- Yet very far away.
As hard as it is to define and measure
This feels good-- like the satin of cold
Ice cream as it slides down the back of my throat.

So much is different now, so many new circumstances to acknowledge.
Temptation creeps down my back as I nakedly greet each new day.

Thoughts of you, new and old, invade my consciousness like a masked
assassin.
Quietly you continue to visit me-
If only in my colorless, yet enrapturing dreams.

Thank you for engendering in me again
A sense of what used to be.
Recounting my blessings, I'm now able
To give liberty to my thoughts
Rather than merely watching myself
As if a reflection in a dirty cafe window.

--J.A.M.


Tangible Separation

Senselessly I rise before you
Unsure of anything but the
Raw craving deep within.
It was never supposed to be this way-
      You-
      Me-
      Separate
      Alone, yet not so.

The night slowly ticks away until our sweet hour arrives.
I am a stranger here, having not felt this way for so long.
This peace, this urgency
I have nothing but my pen, some paper, and the incalculable memories of you, of us.

Outside my window I can hear small signs of time slipping away.
Peaceful sounds of nature
Herald the Dawn as She jabs red and golden fingers at me.
No more time to unwrap you.

What am I to do now?
Silently I rise again, without armor
to face another day- hectically and absentmindedly trying to remember
As in the pit of my soul your fire rages.

Let me now stand with you in some new Place
And share some new Hope
      Grace
      Redemption.

Too often I've cried out with muffled tongue and silent silver screams.
Too often I've sacrificed restless dreams for the sake of compassion.

But the gray of a shriveled soul strangled by the unfolding layers of my
Thirstful existence
and an empty burning bed

Push me forward.
It must be.

--J.A.M.

Winter came and went
The oak tree shed its green leaves
Spring! Time of rebirth

'Objective correlative' was a phrase coined by T.S. Eliot in a 1919 essay on Hamlet. Essentially, he said that if we are to believe in the emotion characters are showing in a work of art, that emotion must be relatable to, in scale with, the situation and events which surround it--what Eliot called its 'formula'. If the emotion seems too much or too little for these externals, we find it unconvincing. The idea is highly debatable (and Eliot himself came to deplore the way his phrase became standard jargon). In much literature and drama, and particularly in stage comedy, it is precisely the disparity between circumstances and emotional reaction which makes the art--and in other works, for example Medea or Madame Bovary, it is hard to see how the idea of an objective correlative has any relevance at all.

From Cao Xueqin's Story of the Stone, Volume 1, the Golden Days:

Ancient earth and sky
      Marvel that love's passion should outlast all time
Star-crossed men and maids
      Groan that love's debt should be so hard to pay.

SERENDIPITY

NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. ser·en·dip·i·ties

1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. 2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries. 3. An instance of making such a discovery.


ETYMOLOGY: From the characters in the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, who made such discoveries, from Persian Sarandip, Sri Lanka, from Arabic sarandib.


WORD HISTORY: We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for the word serendipity, which he coined in one of the 3,000 or more letters on which his literary reputation primarily rests. In a letter of January 28, 1754, Walpole says that “this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word.” Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of “a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of….”

Tatsu-jo (19th c.)
When the cherry
blossoms bloomed
they brought beauty to my heart.

Chiyo-ni (1703-1775)
In the spring rain
all things
grow beautiful.

Chiyo-ni (1703-1775)
Oh butterfly
what are you dreaming of
when you move your wings?

Chiyo-ni (1703-1775)
My hunter of dragonflies
how far would he have strayed today?



Den Sute-jo (1633-98)
The fireflies
fear their reflection
in the water.

Sogetsu-ni (?-1804)
The sky clears
and the moon and the snow
are one color.

Here is something I added to the site about Richard Wright and his haikus:

Damn, Hiro, your last posts seem so dark. What gives?

Sonnets from the Portuguese, XIII -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
Between our faces, to cast light on each ?--
I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach
My hand to hold my spirit so far off
From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof
In words, of love hid in me out of reach.
Nay, let the silence of my womanhood
Commend my woman-love to thy belief,--
Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed,
And rend the garment of my life, in brief,
By a most dauntless, voiceless fortitude,
Lest one touch of this heart convey its grief.

Alone I lay in bed
Tortured by the waste of my false trust
Accepting the despise'd truth
Haunted by the past and frightened by the future

Conscious of the terror that overwhelms my soul's spirit
I rise and watch the enormous dragon engulf the fiery sun.

The great serpent, diseased by the burning orb,
Crumbles in a final dying fight.
Passionate, sultry hues color the heavens and exault the dance.

A single candle flickers its bleak light in the center of the chamber
Shadows masquerade about the desolate room.

I feel my life slipping away.
My spirit succumbs to the pain and distress
As I stare at the insignificant fire.

Slowly... before me I notice celestial mists swirl about my feet,
Rise around me,
And take form.

You radiate with friendship so close yet miles away
Many times we've talked, agrued, laughed-- only to grow closer
Many times we've drifted apart only to come back together-- stronger
You challenge my mind and pull at my heart

My life sems more beautiful now, with this friendship

(from "Quintessence II")