Manzoku-an 3

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 almost fifty years ago, that this moment would come?

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