280 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
280 lines
6.9 KiB
Markdown
%title Ideas for some music
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Art songs, poems by Dwale.
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But also maybe I want to write a strangely personal analysis á là *Pale Fire* or maybe *House of Leaves*.
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From *Face Down in the Leaves*, 2019, Weasel Press.
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-----
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p.26
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'''
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The seasonal storms have poured upon the grassy flat,
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The leafless stalks abound like thirsty mouths.
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Puddles form and soon are swarmed with little fish,
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And all the arid life has fled despair.
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And here, wrapped in rain, lies the oldest soul,
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The changes wrack his bones with painful cold.
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His skin is like the sky at night, as many scars
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Have marked his hide as there are glinting stars.
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At once he feels his lungs become bereft of breath,
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His daughter nudges him, to no effect.
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She walks away rememb'ring days they stalked the plains,
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Within her womb there grows a golden bloom.
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'''
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```
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- u-- u - u -u - u- u
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- u- u -u - u- u
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u- u - u - u - u - u
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- u - u- u - u -u
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- u u - u u - u- u
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- u- u - u - u- u
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- u - u - u - u - u- u
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- u - u - u - u- u
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- u - u - u -u -u - u
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- u- u- u - u -u
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- u -u -u- u - u - u
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-u - u - u - u- u
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```
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-----
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p.8
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'''
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Summer, season of hot insomnia,
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That much never seems to change at all.
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Laying awake in the red desert night,
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I shape forest from shade and wait for fall.
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Ten years now gone, and who thought I would miss
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Cricket songs, cicadas and katydids?
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Then I'd gladly have grabbed a big hammer,
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Smashed them flat as Pinocchio's conscience.
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Testing palisades of clocks and yardsticks,
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No advent waits for the restive dreamer.
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I bandage my tattered, bitten left hand
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And shed the smoke rings on my cloven finger.
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'''
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-----
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*Face down in the leaves*
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p.9
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'''
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We crawl through moist humus like millipedes,
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Feasting on dirt and dead, crumbling leaves
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While striped skies cycle through violet hues,
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While time's kisses take the shape of a bruise.
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Endeavors wear the warmer years away,
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Reduced at last to heaven's dormant clay.
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Alive, I lick brambles until my tongue
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Tears, despairing ever being so young.
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I think of you. I don't smile when I do.
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A moment more and then the day is gone,
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In evening grey, we mourn the vanished dawn,
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And so on, maybe waiting for someone
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To come drag us back to where we belong.
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In dreams we interred, with your pure throat bare,
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I know your breath, your jasmine-scented air.
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Alive, a god to mites and mud-daubers.
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The harvestmen scuttle and bob onwards.
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'''
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-----
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*Dirt Garden*
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p.5
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'''
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My garden of foxtails and milk-thistle,
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Alive and wild, more so than tended rows
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In growth, has died. I killed them a little,
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The crab-grass clumps, Datura and nettle.
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"Time and time, I commit these small murders,
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To whose benefit?" I ask why and wonder,
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The scent of sap on scuffed and bloody hands.
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If I indwelt some luring scrap of land
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Far from here, secluded, my own to call,
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I would welcome these same weeds, one and all,
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To plant their roots in my warm, earthen roof,
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Just they and I, with no need of reproof,
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And thank the thorns for making a hale fence,
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The compost for being my winter blanket.
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'''
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-----
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## Analysis
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### Related
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"Winter" by Eric Whitacre, text by Edward Esch - https://ericwhitacre.com/music-catalog/winter
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'''
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I.
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The snow is falling,
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sleeping,
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whispering,
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dreaming of water.
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II.
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Gold, silver, iron, stone;
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pure and gentle, silently melting,
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the sun sings softly through the quiet ice.
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III.
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A single snowflake awakens,
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shimmers,
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glows,
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watches the world with weary eyes,
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darkens,
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settles,
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and disappears.
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'''
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From "Mid-Winter Songs" by Morten Lauridsen, text by Robert Graves - https://genius.com/albums/Morten-lauridsen/Mid-winter-songs
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'''
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*Lament for Pasiphaë*
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Dying sun, shine warm a little longer!
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My eye, dazzled with tears, shall dazzle yours
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Conjuring you to shine and not to move
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You, sun, and I all afternoon have laboured
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Beneath a dewless and oppressive cloud--
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A fleece now gilded with our commen grief
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That this must be a night without a moon
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Dying sun, shine warm a little longer!
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Faithless she was not: she was very woman
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Smiling with dire impartiality
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Sovereign, with heart unmatched, adored of men
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Until Spring's cuckoo with bedraggled plumes
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Tempted her pity and her truth betrayed
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Then she who shone for all resigned her being
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And this must be a night without a moon
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Dying sun, shine warm a little longer!
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*Like Snow*
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She, then, like snow in a dark night
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Fell secretly. And the world waked
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With dazzling of the drowsy eye
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So that some muttered 'Too much light,'
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And drew the curtains close
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Like snow, warmer than fingers feared
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And to soil friendly;
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Holding the histories of the night
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In yet unmelted tracks
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*She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep*
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She tells her love while half asleep
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In the dark hours
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With half-words whispered low:
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As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
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And puts out grass and flowers
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Despite the snow
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Despite the falling snow
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*Mid-Winter Waking*
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Stirring suddenly from long hibernation
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I knew myself once more a poet
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Guarded by timeless prinicipalities
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Against the worm of death, this hillside haunting;
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And presently dared open both my eyes
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O gracious, lofty, shone against from under
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Back-of-the-mind-far clouds like towers;
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And you, sudden warm airs that blow
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Before the expected season of new blossom
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While sheep still gnaw at roots and lambless go--
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Be witness that on waking, this mid-winter
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I foudn her hand in mine laid closely
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Who hsall watch out the Spring with me
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We stared in silence all around us
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But found no winter anywhere to see
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*Intercession in Late October*
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How hard the year dies: no frost yet
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On drifts of yellow sand Midas reclines
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Fearless of moaning reed or sullen wave
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Firm and fragrant still the brambleberries
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On ivy-bloom butterflies wag
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Spare him a little longer, Crone
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For his clean hands and love-submissive heart
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'''
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Haiku by Issa - https://archive.org/details/autumnwindselect0000koba/page/10/mode/2up
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'''
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Heedless that the dews
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mark the passing of our day ---
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we bind ourselves to others
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(Mi no ue no tsuyu to mo shirade hodashikeri - p.11 - spring)
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O winds of autumn!
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Nearer we draw to the Buddha
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As the years advance
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(Akikaze yo hotoke ni chikaki toshi no hodo - p.11 - autumn)
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Floating weeds,
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as blow the winds of the floating world ---
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drifting and drifting
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(Ukigusa ya ukiyo no kaze no iu mama ni - p.18 - spring)
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A blessing indeed ---
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This snow on the bed-quilt,
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This, too, is from the pure land
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(Arigata ya fusama no yuki mo Jodo yori - p.46 - winter)
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Is this it, then,
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My last resting place ---
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Five feet of snow!
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(Kore ga maa tsui no sumika ka yuki goshaku - p.37 - winter)
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On the hill of summer
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Stands the slender maiden flower
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In a solitary humor
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(Natsuyama ya / Hitori kigen no / Ominaeshi - p.65 - summer)
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Red dragon-fly ---
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He's the one that likes the evening,
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Or so it seems.
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(Akatombo / Kare mo yubo ga / Suki ja yara - p.65 - autumn)
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Heedless that the tolling bell
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Marks our own closing day ---
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We take this evening's cool
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(Mi no ue no kane tomo shirade yusuzumi - p.39 - summer)
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'''
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Some underlines in *19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei* by Eliot Weinberger, 2016, New Directions Publishing Corporation.
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