The universe and all things profoundly ordinary, in about 31 syllables. Waka, tanka, haiku: these poems are the scent of cedar at a construction site, the single yellow flower that still blooms in a winter hedge, and the orange sunset that billows into a cloudy sky, only to flash green for a moment — glimpsed through the window of a passing city bus.
————————————————————
Molly Vallor is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University. She is currently a Fulbright graduate research fellow at Nichibunken in Kyoto, Japan, where she is translating and studying Zen master Muso Soseki’s (1275 — 1351) personal anthology of short verse.
————————————————————-
These words turned to verse
borne by birds chirping at dusk
are mine and mine alone
and reflect in no way
the opinions and the views
of the Fulbright Program,
U.S. Department of State,
or any of its
partner organizations
