one hundred bones

In this poor body, composed of one hundred bones and nine openings, is something called spirit, a flimsy curtain swept this way and that by the slightest breeze. It is spirit, such as it is, which led me to poetry, at first little more than a pastime, then the full business of my life. There have been times when my spirit, so dejected, almost gave up the quest, other times when it was proud, triumphant. So it has been from the very start, never finding peace with itself, always doubting the worth of what it makes ... All who achieve greatness in art - Saigyo in traditional poetry, Sogi in linked verse, Sesshu in painting, Rikyu in tea ceremony - possess one thing in common: they are one with nature.

Basho, The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel

into the green

the poem of the enso

If that moon falls,
I'll give it to you.
Now try to take it.

The poem in "Enso with a Poem"

the view

dreaming butterfly

You the butterfly -
I, Chuang Tzu's
dreaming heart

Basho Matsuo



"Once Chuang Tzu dreamt that he was a butterfly. He did not know that he had ever been anything but a butterfly and was content to hover from flower to flower. Suddenly he awoke and found to his astonishment that he was Chuang Tzu. But it was hard to be sure whether he really was Tzu and has only dreamt that he was a butterfly, or was really a butterfly, and was only dreaming that he was Tzu."

from the book of Chuang Tzu