What a wonderful surprise today! A package in the mail containing a book titled Daughters of Emptiness, Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns. Touching and tender verse. Thank you dear friend. Yes it was about a year ago we met. In London. Briefly. Dharma connections are a living treasure.

The following poem, copied from the Wisdom Publications website, is in the book.

The sequence of seasons naturally pushes forward,
Suddenly I am startled by the ending of the year.
Lifting my eyes I catch sight of the winter crows,
Calling mournfully as if wanting to complain.
The sunlight is cold rather than gentle,
Spreading over the four corners like a cloud.
A cold wind blows fitfully in from the north,
Its sad whistling filling courtyards and houses.
Head raised, I gaze in the direction of Spring,
But Spring pays no attention to me at all.
Time a galloping colt glimpsed through a crack,
The tap [of Death] at the door has its predestined time.
How should I not know, one who has left the world,
And for whom floating clouds are already familiar?
In the garden there grows a rosary-plum tree:
Whose sworn friendship makes it possible to endure.
Chan Master Jingnuo