Monday, March 2, 2009

Somebody else's poem tonight

I have a funny feeling that Delicate Subjective is going to undergo a transformation.  I may be totally wrong.  But I suspect we are nearing the end of this incarnation.  I offer a poem by Abe no Nakamaro (698-770), a Japanese student of Zen who spent many years of his life in China.

Moon!  Moon!
I see you now above the vast field of blue waves.
So, you are the same moon
I looked at in my hometown of Kasuga,
Rising above Mikasa Mountain.
Though I have been getting older in this foreign land,
You still have the same beautiful face.

Normally, I would have taken a phrase from this poem for the phrase of the day.  Maybe "Getting older in this foreign land," or "The same beautiful face."  When I read the poem for the first time today, I immediately picked out both of those as possible titles of the day.  But a shifting is going on below the surface, and I don't think we can carry on as before.  The fact that today is Without Photo does not necessarily signal the end of the world.  I hope it signals the beginning of a new one.

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