Category Archives: readings

Unknown's avatar

these two tears

by

Fresh moss covers
the stone bed;
how many springtimes
was it the Master’s?

His profile in meditation
has been sketched;
but the body of the meditator
has been burned.

Snow in the pines
has closed the pagoda courtyard;
dust settles in the lock
on the sutra library.

I chide myself
for these two tears —
a man who hasn’t grasped
the empty nature of all things.

Mourning the Death of Ch’an Master Po-Yen

from When I Find You Again It Will Be In Mountains – Selected Poems of Chia Tao

translated by Mike O’Connor 

Unknown's avatar

famous

by

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,   
which knew it would inherit the earth   
before anybody said so.   

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.   

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.   

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.   

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.   

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,   

but because it never forgot what it could do.   

Famous by Naomi Shihab Nye
in 180 More – Extraordinary poems for everyday, selected by Billy Collins