Tonight, the trees are
full of strange birds from other
area codes and
the stars are Christmas lights left
on, year ‘round, each one with their
own planetary system.
*Bussokusekika is a rare form of Japanese poetry that consists of six lines written in a 5-7-5-7-7-7 mora pattern. Arising during the Nara period, the form had essentially died out by the Heian period. For centuries, the only existing examples were the twenty one poems inscribed beside the stone Buddha Foot monument at Yakushi Temple in Nara, Japan, by an unknown author around 753 CE. Though not of particular literary value, the pieces—written in Man’yōgana, a medieval syllabic script—have religious significance: the first seventeen praise Buddha and his life while the last four extol the four-fold Buddhist path and advise against worldly attachments.
Grey Sparrow Journal 