Plum Blossoms

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Every night from now

Will turn to dawn from the white

Blooms of the plum tree.

~ Buson [Englished by Phillip Whidden]

If white is purity, then truth is true

Forever, everywhere, not least because

White, prismed, turns to every color, blue

And purple, red and orange and gives us pause

Before the caution yellow, but in fact

The colors are a range unnumbered, white

Is all, infinity.  So Christ’s first act

Made all the cosmic hues and tints ignite.

It follows that the blossom of the plum

Can cause infinitude to be the dawn

Of all.  This color then becomes the sum

Of full expression.  It flows on and on.

Night’s shade gives way to endless flowers and fruit

Since white is every beauty, absolute.

[This sonnet should be paired with the sonnnet “A Weeping Willow Tree, Fare Thee Well.”]