Word and Image

[karadin.livejournal.com]

A single moon
bright and clear
In an unclouded sky;
yet still we stumble
in the world’s darkness.

Ikkyu

Comments

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

I very much like the philosophical criticism behind this poem (we humans take our darkness everywhere, however light it is!) but I'm still thinking over the image choice - he looks a bit unconcerned for a stumbler!

"Single moon" is also interesting (as they don't come in pairs). I wonder what the original character is. Might it be "solitary" (i.e. unaccompanied) rather than numerically single? Just a thought.

Thanks for putting a bit of Zen our way!

[karadin.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to be so literal with the image, Gackt in a business suit on a busy street could be seen as the pursuit of monetary/physical gain to the exclusion of the spiritual, which is what the poem meant to me.

[wongkk.livejournal.com]

Ah - in which case, the unconcernedness is the very point! No surer way of staying in the dark.

I'm so pleased that Gackt doesn't have to follow the tram lines in a formal suit to earn his money: we'd all lose a lot of fun, eh? (and he'd hate it).