On this first day of Spring, Stanley Kunitz just slayed me with a line about his imagining the snakes in his garden to have gone underground now that the nights had gotten cold prior to the coming of winter and “before the sickle frost” in his poem The Snakes of September.
The link takes you to a snippet of an interview where he reads the poem.
Recently a call went out to poets to send their poem, nature, animal poems to the Han Shan Poetry Project which would hang them on trees in a forest threatened to be sold to developers. Han Shan was an ancient Chinese poet who posted his poems on the trees and rocks of Cold Mountain where he roamed and which was his home.
Gary Snyder first introduced me to Han Shan through his translation of Cold Mountain Poems, containing poems of Han Shan’s which had been found and collected. Han Shan’s wild zen poems about nature of the wild and the nature of man were very influential in my personal growth and in the evolution of my craft. To read the haiku Owl Light I sent to this project click on the link below.
Read the poem on my blog An Illuminated Path of Heart by clicking here: Owl Light
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If you like this poem, consider reading a few of my new poems on my blog and checking out my book Span (Rhizome Publishing 2011, 2012) which can be purchased as an eBook and read on most devices or as a beautiful paperback to be held in your hands and taken with you on your day. The cover art by Mathias Valdez of Last Leaf Printing takes the book as object” concept to a lovely level. Span also makes a great, inexpensive gift for the book or nature lover on your list.
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To buy Span now with Paypal, Click on image below.
an illuminated path of heart 