Old Man at Leisure

Sacred or secular
manners and conventions
make no difference to him.
Completely fee
leaving it all to heaven
he seems a simpleton.
No one catches
a glimpse inside
his mind.
This old man
all by himself
between heaven and earth.

Muso Soeki 1275-1351

Lazy About Writing Poems

With time I become lazy about writing poems.
Now my only company is old age.
In an earlier life I was a poet, a mistake,
and my former body belonged to a painter.
I can’t abandon habits of that life
and sometimes am recognized by people of this world.
My name and pen name speak my former being
but about all this my heart is ignorant.

 Wang Wei 701-761

My aunt, the last of her generation in our family, died yesterday at age 99. She had a long and full life and will be remembered fondly by many. Her passing drew me to the two poems today which are written from the point of view of an aged person.

Perhaps one of the benefits of a long life is that one has the time and/or the leisure to see beyond the roles and demands of the world. One has the time to shed what is no longer necessary and be still within, to have time to become acquainted with the heart.

What we are in our hearts is who we are when we are alone, when all masks are put aside, all affectations discarded. The very young and the very old share this innocence. Through non-attachment we become invulnerable, and do not ask life to be other than it is.