Happy 2016

Poets are friends over generations, nations, & religions. Here is a stanza of Omar Khayyam’s Rubayyat translated into English by Edward FitzGerald, which makes you wonder about the cycle of nature:

Now, New Year reviving old Desires,

The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires.

   When the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough

Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

Plant a Tree

Kenjuu, a simple, pure peasant in Kenji Miyazawa’s (1896 - 1933) short story, plants 700 cedars & grows them, not feeling down for his neighbor’s sarcasm. As years are passing so trees are building themselves to be the garden, where children gather to play. After he has passed, the garden grows more beautiful. George Orwell (1903-1950), English novelist, essayist, & journalist, I think, didn’t know the story of Kenjuu’s Garden, but he recommended us to plant a tree:

The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.