The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy

John Brehm

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781614293316
• eBook ISBN: 9781614293422
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Over 125 poetic companions, from Basho to Billy Collins, Saigyo to Shakespeare.

The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy received the Spirituality & Practice Book Award for 50 Best Spiritual Books in 2017 by Spirituality and Practice Website.

The poems expertly gathered here offer all that one might hope for in spiritual companionship: wisdom, compassion, peacefulness, good humor, and the ability to both absorb and express the deepest human emotions of grief and joy. The book includes a short essay on “Mindful Reading” and a meditation on sound from editor John Brehm—helping readers approach the poems from an experiential, non-analytical perspective and enter into the mindful reading of poetry as a kind of meditation.

The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy offers a wide-ranging collection of 129 ancient and modern poems unlike any other anthology on bookshelves today. It uniquely places Buddhist poets like Han Shan, Tu Fu, Saigyo, Ryokan, Basho, Issa, and others alongside modern Western poets one would not expect to find in such a collection—poets like Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, William Stafford, Denise Levertov, Jack Gilbert, Ellen Bass, Billy Collins, and more. What these poems have in common, no matter whether they are explicitly Buddhist, is that all reflect the essential truths the Buddha articulated 2,500 years ago.

The book provides an important poetic complement to the many prose books on mindfulness practice—the poems here both reflect and embody the dharma in ways that can’t be matched by other modes of writing. It’s unique features include an introduction that discusses the themes of impermanence, mindfulness, and joy and explores the relationship between them. Biographical notes place the poets in historical context and offer quotes and anecdotes to help readers learn about the poets’ lives. 

PART ONE

Impermanence

Tu Fu

712–770

Jade Flower Palace

The stream swirls. The wind moans in

The pines. Grey rats scurry over

Broken tiles. What prince, long ago,

Built this palace, standing in

Ruins beside the cliffs? There are

Green ghost fires in the black rooms.

The shattered pavements are all

Washed away. Ten thousand organ

Pipes whistle and roar. The storm

Scatters the red autumn leaves.

His dancing girls are yellow dust.

Their painted cheeks have crumbled

Away. His gold chariots

and courtiers are gone. Only

A stone horse is left of his

Glory. I sit on the grass and

Start a poem, but the pathos of

It overcomes me. The future

Slips imperceptibly away.

Who can say what the years will bring?

Translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth.

Matsuo Bashō

1644–1694

summer grasses —

all that remains

of warriors’ dreams

Translated from the Japanese by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto.

Han Shan

Ninth century

Fields, a house, many mulberry trees, fine gardens!

Oxen and calves fill his stables and his well-trodden roads.

He knows for sure from all this that all effects have causes,

and that only fools buy early and sell late.

So his eyes can see too how it could all get gone,

ground down, melted, all away . . .

These things can knock on the heads of everyone living,

like the Abbot’s knock on the noggin of the errant novice.

You can end up in paper pants, or worse, with

a broken tile, pierced and hung on a thong

flip-flapping over your private parts . . .

and sure as sure, you’ll end up dead,

maybe starved or frozen, but certainly dead.

Translated from the Chinese by J. P. Seaton.

Ryōkan

1758–1831

I never longed for the wilder side of life.

Rivers and mountains were my friends.

Clouds consumed my shadow where I roamed,

and birds pass high above my resting place.

Straw sandals in snowy villages,

a walking stick in spring,

I sought a timeless truth: the flower’s glory

is just another form of dust.

Translated from the Japanese by Sam Hamill.

Saigyō

1118–1190

“Detached” observer

of blossoms finds himself in time

intimate with them —

so, when they separate from the branch,

it’s he who falls . . . deeply into grief.

Translated from the Japanese by William LeFleur.

Robert Frost

1874–1963

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

James Schuyler

1923–1991

Korean Mums

Beside me in this garden

are huge and daisy-like

(why not? are not

oxeye daisies a chrysanthemum?),

shrubby and thick-stalked,

the leaves pointing up

the stems from which

the flowers burst in

sunbursts. I love

this garden in all its moods,

even under its winter coat

of salt hay, or now,

in October, more than

half gone over: here

a rose, there a clump

of aconite. This morning

one of the dogs killed

a barn owl. Bob saw

it happen, tried to

intervene. The airedale

snapped its neck and left

it lying. Now the bird

lies buried by an apple

tree. Last e...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part One. Impermanence
• Part Two. Mindfulness
• Part Three. Joy
• Appendices
• Biographical Notes
• Credits
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editor
• Copyright