Intoxicated by Moonlight

seeing the full moon reflected
in  thousand dewdrops --
a cricket!

One day, while Nan-ch‘üan was living in a little hut in the mountains, a strange monk visited him just as he was preparing to go to his work in the fields. Nan-ch‘üan welcomed him, saying, “Please make yourself at home. Cook anything you like for your lunch, then bring some of the left-over food to me along the road leading nowhere but to my work place.” Nan-ch‘üan worked hard until evening and came home very hungry. The stranger had cooked and enjoyed a good meal by himself, then thrown away all provisions and broken all utensils. Nan-ch‘üan found the monk sleeping peacefully in the empty hut, but when he stretched his own tired body beside the stranger’s, the latter got up and went away. Years later, Nan-ch‘üan told the anecdote to his disciples with the comment, “He was such a good monk, I miss him even now.”

Hungry & tired, Nan-ch‘üan stretches himself out to sleep next to the visiting monk.
The little hut's roof barely keeps out the rain, & its walls let streaks of moonlight in.
Yawning, Nan-ch‘üan feels the pain in his belly & his mouth waters at the thought of rice.
When he laughs at himself, the strange monk wakes up & goes in a hurry.