Summer Birds and Flowers

Unrolling

the coiled scroll

enacts the momentary

sweeping down the midday sky

of small birds

on a draft from the distant

blue ravines

and mountain ridges

into the windy clearing

of summer's

middle distance, so luminous

and near

it's easy to ignore

given the distraction

of hollyhocks

and the stalks of amber iris

that steeply

lean into the emptiness

that borders

the tended garden path

Any fear of what imperils

and impends

is thereby tempered—

the tidal and jagged line

of the far mountains

merely an artful

mapping of the birds'

arc of flight

And such a glimmer of gaiety

as they dip and swoop

with unguarded ease

into the inseparable

immensity

my heart stops now

as I think of it

(Shikibu Terutada, Summer Birds and Flowers, one of a pair of hanging scrolls, 16th Century)