Dream Song 73: Karensui, Ryoan-ji
The taxi makes the vegetables fly.
‘Dozo kudasai,’ I have him wait.
Past the bright lake up into the temple,
Shoes off, and
My right leg swings me left.
I do survive beside the garden I
Came seven thousand mile the other way
Supplied of energies all to see, to see.
Differ them photographs, plans lie:
How big it is!
Austere a sea rectangular of sand by the oiled mud wall,
And the sand is not quite white: granite sand, grey,
€”from nowhere can one see all the stones—
But helicopters or a Brooklyn reproduction
Will fix that—
And the fifteen changeless stones in their five worlds
With a shelving of moving moss
Stand me the thought of the ancient maker priest.
Elsewhere occurs—I remember—loss.
Through awes & weathers neither it increased
Nor did one blow of all his stone & sand thought die.
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