In the Deep Woods

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You find a flower half-buried in leaves,

And in your eye its very fate resides.

Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;

Soon enough, you’ll sweep petals from the floor.

Terrible to love the lovely so,

To count your own years, to say “I’m old,”

To see a flower half-buried in leaves

And come face to face with what you are.

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~   寒山  Han Shan

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