Lines from Kyoto

This is my final “Lines from Kyoto” podcast—one poem a week for a year, 52 in total. Volumes of my villanelles available via Amazon.com. Thanks for listening. Bows and blessings, Preston Keido Houser

An elegy for the many friends this year who have transcended the heaven-and-hell of the here-and-now to realize nirvana.

When common sense and decency fail, writers sometimes resort to satire in order to point to a higher morality.

Photo: Shippoji Temple, Nose, Osaka Prefecture.

Photo: Guardian spirit (nio) of a Buddhist temple, one of a pair, a manifestation of the bodhisattva Vajrapani.

cf. “The Cloud of Unknowing,” an anonymous work of Medieval Christian mysticism.

Photo: Myoshuji Temple, Kameoka, Kyoto

A dialogue twixt two voices: night and light.

“Lest human voices wake us, and we drown”—stolen from T. S. Eliot, the last line of the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

Photo: Make Shrine, Sonobe, Kyoto.

Photo: Toji Temple, Kyoto