Empty field except clouds grazing at its centre somewhere far off...sheep.
Empty field except for the colours green...blue & white creating a scene.
Empty field except for the silence being shattered by the big dog’s bark
Empty field except invisible voices call “Where are you..? ” “I’...lost! ”
Empty field except for an oversized unseen big green frog: “...ribbit! ”
Empty field except for a cow exiting now the scene by a tail
Empty field except for a cow now entering the scene by a nose
Empty field except for the well concealed couple making out in hedge
Empty field just waiting for us to come in to keep it in mind
Empty field full now with clouds, a sheep’s bleat, laughter & two lowing cows
Empty field full to the brim with such memories colouring it in.
Field empty now because we have left...does it still exist...now we’ve gone?
Clouds migrate from field to field occasionally getting caught on top of people’s heads in photos or trapped in a mesh of trees.
DEER PARK
Mountain empty of people but somewhere...invisible voices Buddha’s rays penetrate dense forest greener again...illumination of lichen.
DEAR PARK
Tourist mountain people & their litter everywhere to be seen...obscenely obese. Old poem in my hand penetrates my mind its words an illumination of green lichen.
*
The EMPTY FIELD haiku sequence came about with my efforts to translate(rather badly I fear)**** Wei’s famous DEER PARK.
The failure of this(nothing goes to waste...it being all being grist to the mill)then provoked me to write my tanka about the grazing clouds and the invisible sheep which then propelled me into writing haiku about an empty field where nothing is apparently happening...or it would appear so.
And so by indirections I found directions out as Mr. Shakes so succinctly puts it.
LU ZHÁI - **** Wei(c.700-761) Tang Dynasty
These little lines(over 1200 years old)enduring the transformation of translations through time after time until finally arriving in my mind and using my words much as a hermit crab would take up residence in an old shell or broken *** on the seabed of my mind. My words may not be a perfect home but it is enough that these lines have agreed to take up residence in my mind if even for the briefest time illuminating words of mine.
*******
LU SHÁI
Kong shan bu jian rén Dan wén rén yo xiang Fan jing(ying) ru shen lín Fu shao qing tái shang
CHARACTER BY CHARACTER TRANSLATION
Empty mountain (negative) to see people
But to hear people words sound
To return bright(ness) to enter deep forest
To return to shine green lichen above Again to reflect blue/black moss on top
*******
**** Wei was a fervent Buddhist and in the Mahayana texts the Western Paradise(being the domain of the Amida Buddha) crops up every now and then..it being the place of the setting sun where one desires to be reborn.
Hence the brightness or sunlight in the original I have translated as Buddha’s rays.
I also stand the mountain in its own magnificence and have it empty of people.
I had the most trouble with the returning/shining aspect and have taken the liberty to express it as greener again as if it were already green but made even more so by this dying light. And of course we along with the lichen are...illuminated.
I couldn't help but stick it into a future where it is nothing but a tourist trap...come and see where the Buddha gave his first sermon. Roll up!
A translation is an agreeing to live with the imperfections of your perfections or the perfections of your imperfections.