Frolic

Don't be so deep.

Spend a meager moment frolicking

on the surface of things.

Some say you're the ocean.

I say, be a wave,

a bubble of foam.

Skip across a thousand crests

like a sunbeam.

Moth-dance on my lips and eyes,

figure me with little kisses.

Be pollen on the window,

not the glass.

Expressionist bird droppings

on a marble terrace.

Your soul defined by

blemishes and crow’s feet.

A vintage golden earring in the trash.

Pay more attention

to what's thrown away.

‘Away’ might be your motherland.

When you dust off Great 

Aunt Gertrude's teapot,

become the dust.

Or a snowflake dissolving

on the first plum bud.

Holding the void in your head,

trying to merge with nothing,

makes you heavy.

Be a blade of grass.

What's wrong with thingness?


Sumi-e: Sakai Houitsu, Late Edo period