Certain, Contented

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

Great minds insist that we should all embrace

What comes our way.  The greatness of this thought

Implies that there is not a hiding place

From beauty or from chopping blocks.  We ought

To know this and get used to it.  The field

Will grow, first blades of cornstalks, then the corn,

And after that, the harvest.  Cobs will yield

To death and cooking.  If our brains are shorn

Of honesty in this, then we are fools.

The leaves curl out in spring and then they all

Will die.  Exceptions don’t exist for rules

Like this.  The cherry blossom heads towards fall.

  We must be more than autumn stoic.  We

    Must welcome rooted.  What will be — will be.

~ Phillip Whidden

Blown wild from the west

Falling yellow, leaves, gather

In the maple east.

                                         ~ Buson [Englished by Phillip Whidden]