Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice

Along my journey / through this transitory world, / new year's housecleaning.

When composing a verse let there not be a hair's breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.

Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice... Or backyard love?

There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world?

Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice