Haiku by Hisajo Sugita

O flower garment!

When I take it off,

Many strings coil around me.

Flowers of morning glory.

The sky above this street

Begins to overcast.

In a day of chrysanthemums

I shake and comb my wet hair

Letting the drops fall.

Hardly a word spoken

The man and his wife part -

Autumn nightfall

Chasing a butterfly

Deep into the spring woods

I am lost

A Poem by Denise Levertov

Variation on a Theme by Rilke
A certain day became a presence to me; there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light: a being. And before it started to descend from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with the flat of a sword, granting me honor and a task. The day's blow rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened, and what I heard was my whole self saying and singing what it knew: I can.