Wind
April leaves have given the wind a face and a voice
but not a body and not a will. Facing the headwind
Of great deeds and tragedies, I think we feel the same:
fear and awe at power without will, animating a hero.
Wind
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Category Archives: The Drift
Sunset Over Mountain As Seen Through a Cloud and a Crack in a Windshield
Sunset Over the Mountain As Seen Through a Cloud and a Crack in a Windshield
Behind the cloud mass the sun is uncoiling and coiling
dragon wrapped around itself spitting fire behind a waterfall
And for a moment as I think of home it is eclipsed entirely
by an imperfection in the windshield where six months ago
a pebble fell from nowhere as I drove up this very mountain’s
westward spine bounced with a crack, oblivion leaving its mark
A man wise in these things called this a “star break”
and of no danger to the integrity of my vision
Soon sun the mountain will shrug you off you will drop below
the ragged day’s line into tomorrow while I take the only road
I can to find what I left is now ahead of me and waiting behind
a light in windows, laughter drifting through the gap
Translation talk at Black Swan Books
I will be checking out this rather cool topic in my rather cool and little city this weekend. Angela Carter and Stan Galloway are area poets whose work I have enjoyed hearing in person.
Printer extraordinaire Emily Hancock of St Brigid Press will also be bringing copies of the mini-broadside of my translation of Li Ho’s “Sky Dream” for the event. I will not be selling this myself and I’m not sure if Emily has it for sale yet on her site, but you can always write her if you’re interested in seeing more. The poem is printed on very thin Unryu paper backed by grey Magnani Pescia paper, in Bembo typeface. The matting creates the shape of the moon which of course our poet Li would not bother to name in his brilliant and strange piece of verse, and will I think be available in a variety of night-sky-ish colors.
I believe St Brigid Press will also be issuing this poem’s companion translation of Li Po’s work, as well as a few other translations of classical Chinese verse. And of course as I attend this event I’ll be taking with me my time-travelling version of Mei Yao-ch’en, the great 11th century poet with whom I have spent so much time these last few months…
Still Life, Evening with Leaves and Blinding Light
Still Life, Evening with Leaves and Blinding Light
The leaves were not laughing at me
(I could read their minds by floodlight)
In that perfect increment of night
when I loved the moment enough
For it to be my last they did not laugh
when I decreed it irreversible
In the barrel of empty air afloat
on the last black wave taking root
the leaves
did not laugh at me that
laughter was my own (by
floodlight they can read my mind)
Poem for the Back Cover of a Book
Poem for the Back Cover of a Book
This book does not care if you buy it.
This poem does not care if you buy the book.
Even I do not care if you buy the book.
The three of us have been waiting here
To tell you this, but even more—perhaps
you have just been thinking of that person
Whose love has kept you alive without you
knowing it these many years, perhaps you
Are remembering that person now.
Are they right beside you, unaware your
Love flows stronger than ever? Have you
not exchanged words in years? We are here
To tell you—put down this book, do not look
back, you were never looking back but always
Straight through the eye of his soul.
Put down this book now and go to him.
Or, if you are still here, at a loss for words,
I will help you. Go buy this book
And leave it face down where he
will find it, and notice this poem,
That is why we are here, after all,
And we will see what can be done.
Lotus Compass Points
Lotus Compass Points
Some times you have to go
deep enough in so
there’s no way
out
before a sense
of real direction
develops
*
Orange sun sets through gap in clouds
in the midst of a spring snow flurry
does nothing know its place?
or I have forgotten nothing
has its place here
*
Mist rises from trees
ghosts of foliage
longing for last summer
Sometimes I feel a ghost
in myself a burning off
that I mistake for rising
It clouds the moon
between us
*
Navigating mountain fog road
I slow to the speed of the visible
The sun only a white rumor
all wild empty air just out of reach
Descent brings clarity
a painted line, the next curve ahead
truths higher than any
enveloped peak
After a Mid-March Snowstorm
After a Mid-March Snowstorm
Winter’s last silent sigh
is borne quietly by mountain pines
Clouds drift like tumblers until
they unlock the day’s first color
End of the Day
End of the Day
By the end of every day I want to leave nothing unsaid
who knows when the next time to say it will be?
If it is tomorrow so much the better
I want to kiss my son’s head carry my daughters
as they sleep from our bed to theirs
though it is not as easy as it was a few years ago
and touch foreheads with each dawn
before light burns our silent words away
*
Hollow-boned bird on the twig of this moment
knowing that twig is not home but all there is
to perch on I want to catch up with my own
lightness full of all that wings will cover
or carry with a piece of the end of the day
to add to the nest which will be good enough
when I alight at dawn and for the dusk
I will one day wordlessly drift down to
To An Old Tune
To An Old Tune
Always a surprise to hear your voice
and realize you are still with me
I must persist in you and grow less quiet
now and then like a song that comes to mind
or maybe like the years hum a little louder
without recognition above the level of crickets
distant trains garbage trucks or maybe you have
loved me this long and I’m still surprised by that
Early March, Above Freezing, Light Snow
Early March, Above Freezing, Light Snow
Five mourning doves gather on close branches.
But the sky in the trees is too miserable for mourning.
Even the earth will not accept the night’s snow
which sits in clumps on the ground like oil on water.
It highlights fallen trees on the mountain slope
showing all the directions down can take you.
Between the shed and a crack in the clouds
two bluejays mate in a flurry on a fallen ladder.
Translations from the English 