She has worn a path
deep enough to feel her way
with feet on glassed grasses:
ice on gate awakens her
In
frost, the path is reliable, but in rain, its heavy clay slickens. She
carries small flat stones, and when her foot slides, she drops one in
that spot and tamps it in with her heel: slowly a cobblestone way is
established.
All night, a gentle rain fills the darkness outside
My long years of hard travel are over at last
-- Ryokan in Great Fool: Zen Master Ryōkan: Poems, Letters, and Other Writings 140 (Abé and Haskell, tr.)
Web site of part-time Soto Zen hermitary in Eugene, Oregon
