Buddha's Satori

by Muso Soseki

English version by W. S. Merwin
Original Language Japanese

For six years sitting alone
     still as a snake
          in a stalk of bamboo
with no family
     but the ice
          on the snow mountain
Last night
     seeing the empty sky
          fly into pieces
he shook
     the morning star awake
          and kept it in his eyes

-- from East Window: Poems from Asia, Translated by W. S. Merwin

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Buddha's Satori