Mathematics & Metaphor

Consider the magic of numbers

how they multiply and divide

clothed in symbols

Consider 

nine times nine

and know my age

Consider the sinuous shape of an integral sign

inferencing meaning from ambiguity

metaphor making magic

a digital twin that can 

be imagined

or re-imagined as a woven sheet

where nodes are interconnected

like so many cobwebs on a hedge

in the morning dew

Consider the wisdom of an integral

a value of all that you have known

perhaps St. Peter checks

Consider a thicket of dark spiked holly

green thick with red berries

then feel its pricks

as you push past its leaves

on an overgrown path that leads to a gate

that opens to poetry

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                   202

The Garden of the Golden Valley

By Tu Mu, Tang Dynasty

Prosperity

          lavishness

like scent 

         just gone

Water runs on

grass grows each spring

in the evening breeze

birdsong sounds sad

Falling petals

a fallen beauty

once wrinkled

one’s gone

translated by David Sen and Dick Russell

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2025 

Of A Fallen Flower

By Chang Hu, T’ang Dynasty

A full moon is shining

through the branches of a tree

in the palace courtyard

she sits staring 

at a bird on its nest

her eyes shining

she slides out the long comb

that held her hair rolled

to keep a moth away from her lamp

but who will save her from despair?

Translated by David Sen and Dick Russell

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2025

Upon the Tower at Yu Chou

By Chen Tzu-Ang

Heaven and Earth are separate

I cannot see great principled leaders past or unborn

Viewing a vast landscape from up high

Confronted by loneliness and dew falling from the sky

Translated by David Sen & Dick Russell

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                         2025

For Michael March
1947 - 2025

A Work in Progress
32

(better known to Donal as peachie le nic) 

                                                

a flagstone path    moss in places     lichen

well made for constant traversal beside our home

ten wheelbarrow loads to the herb garden

three beds replenished with black wormy loam

down the slope of the hill to the dogwood tree

where the path steepens and forks three ways

takes you near, far, and faraway from thee

into other domains each wilder, may

you safely return who go that way now

there’s work to be done out on the border

or, if you venture without knowing how

into tangled tumbledown disorder

outside the gate on our property’s edge

beyond the prickles of our holly hedge

Dick Russell

Copyright © February 18, 2020

Thinking of a Dear Friend

By Chang Chi, Tang Dynasty

Last year

you led your soldiers out from the city

I watched for your return

but you did not come

there has been no news of the campaign

you just vanished

beyond the walls

I was going to commemorate you in the temple

but I can’t believe you are dead

I know so little

less even than your horse

he may now honor your standard

he may now graze by your crumpled tent

we will be apart forever

like life and death

what can I do?

except grieve for you

wrench my gaze from the far sky

Translated by David Sen, Dick Russell

 Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                          2025

A Blank White Page - for Pierre Joris (1947-2025)

A Work in Progress
31

A blank page invites written words to bring

purpose to the page next to each other

ruled lines park words where they’re easily found

by the eye or by fingers if embossed

braille on stiff paper touched by fingertips

either way by sight or by touch words matter

A blank page invites written words that won’t

disappear so try your best choose wisely 

knowing words scanned by AI for sentiment

may incur an unfavorable weighting

if read from a certain perspective

intolerant of other perspectives

A blank page invites words that profess

love puts value on forms of expression

value puts price on some product or service

that resist that disdain that drool a trail

like a snail headed up the windowpane

for no reason than to rise always words rise

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                        2025