Li Bai: All the birds

All the birds have flown up and gone

A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.

We never tire of looking at each other

Only the mountain and I.

- Li Bai, Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

"Li Bai Chanting a Poem", by Liang K'ai (1140 - 1210)

*

A Poem for Spring

e.e. cummings: O sweet spontaneous

O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the

doting

          fingers of

purient philosophers pinched

and

poked

thee

,has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

      beauty   .how

often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive

gods

        (but

true

to the incomparable

couch of death thy

rhythmic

lover

          thou answerest

them only with

                        spring)

*