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Too Lazy to be ambitious
Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.
By: Ryokan
It’s cool to see a Japanese poet. Usually in this unit they have all been English. This poem is very short, it has seven lines, and only one stanza. All the letters are capitalized at the beginning of each line. Every line is end stopped. It actually sounds very modern. The language does not seem like it is from the 19th century. There is only one caesura and it is in the middle of the last line. The poem is made up of free verse, and has no rhyming scheme. The poem sounds very euphonious. It is very soothing to read, and makes me not worry about the worries that tomorrow will bring. It is almost meant to be a didactic piece of literature because in a way it is instructing someone on how to live a stress free life. So of course the speaker or persona of the poem in my minds eye is a very “chill” sort of guy. This poem makes me think of the bible in that it tells people to give their worries up to God and let him worry about the problems in your life like drama, food, shelter ect. So you can go on with the living part of your life, but it is also said that God helps those who help themselves, so in that way this poem is not like the bible, this may be an allusion to a religious proverb in Japan. The Janapese people are known for being very hard working though, so maybe not.
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