Snow Valley
by MUSŌ SOSEKI, translated by W. S. MERWIN AND SŌIKU SHIGEMATSU
Each drifting snowflake
falls nowhere
but here and now
Under the settling flowers of ice
the water is flowing
bright and clear
The cold stream
splashes out
the Buddha’s words
Startling
the stone tortoise
from its sleep
These poems in Narrative magazine are excerpted from Sun at Midnight: Poems and Letters (Copper Canyon Press), the first translation into English of the work of Muso Soseki.Soseki was a thirteenth-century Zen roshi and founder of the rock garden. The poems are excellent reading for other poets, gardeners, and students of Zen.
Musō Soseki (1275–1351), born ten years after Dante, became the most famous Zen monk of his time. He advised and taught several emperors, as well as more than thirteen thousand students.
All on my own I’m happy
in the unmapped landscape
inside the bottle
my only friend
is this
wisteria cane
Last night
we stayed up talking
so late
that I’m afraid
I was overheard
by the empty sky
In his old age, Musō withdrew from court to devote himself to Buddha and to cultivate the Zen gardens for which he is remembered. At his death, he left behind an enormous body of poetry and prose. In honor of his profound influence on Japanese culture, he was renamed Musō Kokushi, “national Zen teacher,” by Emperor Go-Daigo.
Toki-no-Ge (Satori Poem)
Year after year
I dug in the earth
looking for the blue of heaven
only to feel
the pile of dirt
choking me
until once in the dead of night
I tripped on a broken brick
and kicked it into the air
and saw that without a thought
I had smashed the bones
of the empty sky
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