We tuck roots in soil, not
knowing if we will see harvest
with wearing the robe,
it is the same.
Ceremoniously
offering and accepting tea,
teacher and student face each other
across
the small table.
Who knew? ... when we were neighbors
in the woods some fifty years ago,
this moment would come?
-- shonin
The luminous moon drifts by so lightly,
The sutra hall lies silent without a sound.
Bits of moonlight pierce the cracks between the bamboo,
Its round refulgence perches in the intersecting pine branches.
The dew dampens the nests filled with noisy swallows,
The wind combs the grasses filled with croaking frogs.
I sit with the master after the ceremony is over
As, face to face, we straighten out our robes.
-- Shiyan, in Daughters of Emptiness tr./ed. Beata Grant