I didn't write these but I thought I'd share them to the community. They're thought provoking and 'simple.' If any of you would like to analyze them with me or if you want to talk about them (feel free to do so). If not, just have fun and enjoy reading them. The following wakas (Japanese poems) are from Kenneth Rexroth's translations entitled One Hundred Poems From the Japanese.
The mists rise over
The still pools at Asuka.
Memory does not
Pass away so easily.
-Akahito
Though the purity
Of the moonlight has silenced
Both nightingale and
Cricket, the cuckoo alone
Sings all the white night
-Anonymous
The purity of the moonlight,
Falling out of the immense sky,
Is so great that it freezes
The water touched by its rays.
-Anonymous
As I watch the moon
Shining on pain's myriad paths,
I know I am not
Alone involved in Autumn.
-Oe No Chisato
A strange old man
Stops me,
Looking out of my deep mirror.
-Hitomaro
I go out of the darkness
Onto a road of darkness
Lit only by the far off
Moon on the edge of the mountains.
-Izumi
Imperceptible
It withers in the world,
This flower-like human heart.
-Komachi
The white chrysanthemum
Is disguised by the first frost.
If I wanted to pick one
I could find it only by chance.
-Oshikochi No Mitsune
Someone passes,
And while I wonder
If it is he,
The midnight moon
Is covered with clouds.
-Lady Murasaki Shikibu
Involuntary,
I may live on
In the passing world,
Never forgetting
this midnight moon.
-The Emperor Sanjo
As I row over the plain
Of the sea and gaze
Into the distance, the waves
Merge with the bright sky.
-Fujiwara No Tadamichi