Come quickly -- as soon as these blossoms open, they fall. This world exists as a sheen of dew on flowers.
~ Izumi Shikibu (Japan, b 974?), thanks to Maureen Flannery
I want the light
locked inside to awaken:
crystalline flower,
wake as I do:
eyelids raise the curtain
of endless earthen time
until deeply buried eyes
flash clear enough again
to see their own clarity.