Chiyojo

Chiyojo

(1703-1775)

 

~

"Dragonfly catcher,
How far have you gone today
In your wandering? "

-Chiyojo

~

I'm but a transient butterfly

With just three days to live

The sun shall rise

And set again,

In time and time

But I shall decay—

My fragile crystal wings imprinted

In the soul of the Earth

 

—A Symbol

 

I'm a fleeting—fleeting—dragonfly

One pulse, one day—

And I shall die

My hours—marked—should I let them slide—?

While cluttered in chaotic toil?

My time elapsed on this fast ride

And then revert to ash and soil?

 

Or spread my church-glass wings—

Sunshine filtering through

The transparent—

Flaky

Mosaic

Poised on leaves of emerald

Balanced on fragile petals

Alight, like a ballerina

With my sashes of gold

In cogitation

Under the sun

 

Should I travel the world,

From end to end

To rise with the Orb—

Then watch it set?

 

Chasing it from West to East

 

And at the end of my one—only—day,

My first and last,

To perish in the tomb of Clay

From whence I've come?

 

I've been wandering

Wandering—Wandering

Combing glades of grassy jade

Under shifting sunlight patterns

In the sky; stretched like a dome

Above my atomic being

Coating my starry dreams

 

I'm but a flake of brittle snow

In soft, soft Alice blue

As I tumble from the firmament

Perfectly, perfectly—into place

I reminisce.

I have once brushed seafloors smooth,

And bathed in light on riverbeds,

I've washed grass blades with dewdrop bloom

Ascending—vapor—to the sky

I've floated with clouds of snowy hue

And gushed to Earth with rain and hail

But now I'm parachuting

Meticulously

Aimlessly

Towards the fleecy cotton ground

 

I'm but a bolt of thunder blue

A flash of lightning in the sky

I was born, I lived,

I carried on—

Alight—a moment

 

And then, I die

 

 

 

Reviews

[Orlando Murcia]

We live with only snapshots of memories
and then we fade away and pass to see
another life

Which I hope was better than the first

Great write O
Very well written with great expressions

Orlando