Seven times seven

A photo taken late in the afternoon, as I walked up the stairs of my old house.
This is what my life feels like to me.
Unfinished beauty, seen through cracked glass;
much time has passed, and the light falling slantwise.

Grouper - Wind Return

Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves

I do not care if
Our lovemaking is exposed
As the rainbow over
The Yasaka dam at Ikaho
If only I can suck and suck you.

-from the Manyoshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves),  an anthology of ancient Japanese poetry composed between the period between 347AD and 759AD

The wound of incompleteness

“The wound of incompleteness opens me up. Through what could be called incompleteness or animal nakedness or the wound, the different separate beings communicate, acquiring life by losing it in communication with each other. The fate of finite beings leaves them at the edge of themselves … And this edge is [always already] torn.” 
 

—	Georges Bataille, L’Expérience intérieure

In this world

In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers.

-Kobayashi Issa

you are like the snow only
purer fleeter,like the rain
only sweeter frailer you

e.e. cummings