Lanxi Daolong

“[T]here are those poems so absorbed in the great unknown that death becomes nearly indistinguishable from life. The jisei [or dead poem] of Rankei Doryu, who died in 1278, reads [like that]... The death haiku of Choha, who died in 1740, also evokes this silence.”

“Thirty years and moreI worked to nullify myself.Now I leap the leap of death.The ground churns upThe skies spin round.”