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About the Ability for Pleasure
by Irme Oravecz
Ryokan, the 18th century Japanese poet
spent decades in the woods as a hermit,
suffered from cold, from loneliness,
from human deficiency, from mortality,
but all along he enjoyed the pleasures of life:
the purl of the brooks, the song of the birds,
rice wine, dusk,
the touch of a chestnut unfolding from its shell,
the rolling of raindrops on the leaves.
I wish
I could maintain such an ability for decades.