SOLITUDE

What price the sweet solitude spelled by a hawk in the sky, stance of a crow on a fencepost, call of a frog from an apricot limb, song of cicada from a cedar bough, the gaze of a deep-blue lake amid green mountains outlining a sky as blue at sunset as golden at dawn--

Solitude, the subject of the long slow sunset chorus, whispering heights of bamboo, gold-headed jade of rice stalks, all spread out like a tapestry before islands in the rising mist, willows bowing to the evening breeze, jasmine waiting for the night--

Solitude, now and then crystallizing as a thought, a memory, washes in to the fertile shore you are...