Lily Wang

EFLECTION HAIKU: Living Modern Life the Simple Way

1.

The lake reflects

All things in tranquility -

Traveler of time

    2.

心如山水靜

世事珠絲影返照

觀喜悅之道

3..

Leaves upon falling

Find homes in constant changing -

Attachment, an illusion

  4.

落葉飄香

執著攀附成幻象

萬變視真相

5.

 Love purifies us  

With the crown and the cross -

Secrets of Life's heart

6.

 荊棘與皇冠

浴火重生傳真愛

生命奧密心

7.

Worries are dust -

Wipe it clean for the jade within

Buddha's bust

8.

煩惱如塵埃

遮掩古玉塊

靜心灰自落

光澤現如來

　9.

Mantra of marriage -

The resolve to count one's blessings

     And forgive the rest     

10.

行如湖畔之水

映照萬物不改其色

時空的過客

11.

Children are rockets -

Shooting from parents' embraces

Landscape of tomorrow

12.

孩童如火箭

振翅還飛父母愛

未來的疆土

13.

The breeze of paints

Draws on the canvas of earth -

Orange Autumn trees

14.

靈光乍現集

浮雲遙指秋深處

心路與天通

15.

"Death"

Deceit to the eyes

Transformations of all forms -

Love unencumbered

16.

來去紅塵間

金蟬脫殼已神仙

子孫空思念

17.

Wintery recession-

A turning opportunity point for

Creative expression

18.

枯枝飛白雪

萬物蕭條人心寒

抓一線生機

19.

In surrender

One will be guided by a source

Greater than the self

20.

無為最難為

見先機一念之間

天境與凡界

21.

Stretching meadows -

The soul breathes in unison with

The pulse of wind

22.

回歸本然心

宇宙消失地平線

靜聽涅盤音

23.

Ancient souls -

Resonate within the sea shells

Culture of pearls

24.

溫良恭儉讓

五行四海低處流

時來龍吐珠

25.

Enemies aren't demons

But our own human beings-

 Peace on earth

26.

天涯燕雙飛

頓悟輕巧腳步重

萬里任禪遊

27.

Things are the

Antithesis of Being -

Less is more

28.

古月照今塵

昨日種種明日幻

此刻通永生

29.

This moment -

As complete as it should be

Not better, not worse

30.

入無人之境

喜怒哀樂蝴蝶夢

身心桃花源

 31.

"The cat"

Calm and content -

Nature's teacher to mankind

God's soft pawprints    

32.

諸象無輕重

成敗榮辱意相同

日夜皆天空

33.

Time is eternal

Fragmented only by the human mind

A drop out of the sea

34.

能量琉璃光

六道輪可塑厚土

正念轉乾坤

35.

Invisible vision -

Followed with unwavering faith

World's eighth wonder

36.

風吟棕櫚泉

山巒重重暈姿色

鳥鳴遠近聞

     37.

The joy of composition -

A vast quilt

With solitary pattern

38.

詩之樂趣

孤寂之盡百重音

天庭遇仙人

39 

Thoughts -

The fleeting poetics

Caught in reflection

40.

神思無限

金蓮朵朵詩意處

綻放一瞬間

(These sampling Chinese and English haiku are not translations of each other. The definitions of each Chinese written word will be included in REFLECTION HAIKU - Lily Wang's new bilingual book -which will be released in 2012. For reprint permission, send requests to gardenhaiku@comcast.net or  PO BOX 103, Clovis, CA 93613).

Copyrighted Material

So what are the golden virtues that Garden Haiku wishes to revive? It is the wisdom found in Tao Te Ching(551BC), "one of the wonders of the world" by Lao Tzu (Stephen Mitchell*)

10.

...Can you love people and lead them

Without imposing your will?

...

Can you step back from your own mind

And thus understand all things?

...

...Giving birth and nourishing,

Having without possessing,

...

Leading and not trying to control:

This is the supreme virtue.

(Passage quoted in Garden Haiku: Raising your Child with Ancient Wisdom, xix)

The soul of Chinese literature is poetry: from oldest "Book of Odes" to TangShu (Tang poetry) to SongZu (Song dynasty poetry) to YungQu (Yung dynasty poetry) . Underneath this glorious landscape were Lao Tzu's influences running through gem-like poems by Wang Wei, Li Po, Mon Ho Jung(701-761) and reached the sea of the Haiku masters, Basho, Issa and Buson(1644-1694). The water of Zen flew into English literature through the talented hands of Blyth's (1898-1964)with his 4 volumes of translated Haiku and rippled through and made impression on works by Williams Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and Richard Wright and many more. "The Sound of Water" returned to Taiwan in the form of Haiku and picked up by a local college girl who was studying English as a second language at that time. The discovery of Haiku was a delightful surprise. Zen was the philosophy I grew up with and now it was expressed through three lines in English. It was familiar in content yet foreign in language. The powerful haiku form thus made its lasting impact on me: three lines are easy enough for a young student to learn English and three lines are very different than traditional Chinese Tang poems that are either 4 or 8 lines. Fifteen years later, I settled down in America and published my first book of poetry. I chose Haiku because of threefold reason. First, 3 lines are as far as I can go as a busy new mom attending a baby's needs. Second, I enjoy the challenge of conjuring up a poetic whole within tight context. But most importantly, a word "Haiku" has unity of English, Japanese and Chinese literature in it just as they are in me.

But Garden Haiku is beyond Haiku and three lines. It traces back to the source that gives marrows to Chinese poetry.The 81 verses in Tao Te Ching teaches wisdom in action.It is about serene living, but it also deeply cared about society. Tao Te Ching "teaches how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the way of life and applies equally to good government and to business, ecology and to child-raising." Timeless as the pages and wisdom, Tao Te Ching is still very alive today and it will nurture the soil in Haiku Garden which builds a bridge that brings poetry to people, parents to children, eastern literature to western readers.

--Lily Wang(2/30/2010 Copyright)

*Tao Te Ching has been brilliantly translated into English by eminent scholar and poet, Stephen Mitchell. This is the English version that is highly recommended by the poet. A copy of Dr. John Wu's is also important as it contains the original Tao Teh Ching in Chinese.

" Haiku: A form of Japanese poetry that state in three lines of five, seven and five syllable a clear picture designed to arouse a distinct emotion and suggest a specific spiritual insight. Every season, element, bird, flower, insect, and so forth comes equipped with a large set of associations that the haiku exploits, often with astonishing originality. Approximations of the spirit of haiku have been found in many Western writers- Wordsworth, Thoreau, Pound, Bly, Snyder--usually in sort poems but also in short passages of prose, and attempts have been made to produce translations of original haiku (the best by R. h. Blyth and the Greek master George Seferis), but the spirit as well as the form tend to get lost. For one thing, the Japanese syllable is an uncommonly short and uniform entity, typically consisting of one simple consonant followed by one simple vowel with no marked stress on any syllable. Since an English syllable can contain as many as seven or eight separate sounds, seventeen English syllables will probably cover significantly more time than seventeen Japanese syllables, so that someone who writes seventeen English syllable under the impression that they constitute a haiku is almost certainly wrong. A closer formal approximation in English would be eleven syllables arranged in a symmetrical pattern of three, five, three (the Japanese are not fussy about the seventeen: some haiku run somewhat longer, and nobody objects." (Holman and Harmon: 230)

(Reference: R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, 2 vols. (1963-1964))

"Haiku is more than a form of poetry; it is a way of seeing the world. Each haiku captures a moment of experience; an instant when the ordinary suddenly reveals its inner nature and makes us take a second look at the event, at human nature, at life."

A.C. Missias