Tanka

Late afternoon Moon
rising over Brooklyn Heights
~ I forget the Sun

Homeward-bound at end of day
Night will never be that dark.

I have been reading Bashō’s travel sketches, culminating in his famous “Narrow Road to the Deep North.” I’m moved by the Japanese tradition of making an event of the contemplation of natural phenomena, like the full Moon, the cherry blossoms. Lately, I’ve been trying to look at the flowers and buds of spring this way.I think also that my Listening Tours (birds, insects, frogs) have some flavor of this contemplation, with special attention to the sounds of the world. (The noisy, crowded, and costume-kitsch-ridden variation at the Brooklyn Wedding Venue’s Sakura Matsuri is not, I think, what tradition had in mind.)This week, we watched a Mourning Cloak butterfly feed on birch sap. It drank deeply and so did we.