Under the summer spores’ drift
Ran placid a brook, no more than a finger’s breadth of lacquery water.
And in it was born a fish to whom the trickle was as the boundless sea,
And when he died, the true sea of heaven delighted him a thousandfold.

In the sere ripples of heat on the rocks
Flitted a dragonfly who cavorted with spirits, unfocused, coming
Toward death in flickers and frames.

A lichen murmured, It is so, it is not so, and crept down her fragrant
Millennial tree; his boughs sighed kindly and bloomed.

And a man shook under the plow,
Wielded the scythe,
Embraced his family.