December 8th, morning sky
Venus pulled the moon over the morning sky
like a necklace snagged on a t-shirt
skids over a pale back on the surface of heaven
December 8th, morning sky
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Tag Archives: moon
still
What is hanging still there over the clouds and houses?
In this moment when even the crickets are pursing their lips.
I know the gravity of things keeps it all moving, that it takes
time for the light to reach me, I know on a soft quiet night
nothing is still but look up there, memory the size of the moon,
lighting the way, going nowhere, perfectly still.
Walking, Noontime, on a Warm Ides of March, Spring Having Arrived A Week Early
Walking, Noontime, on a Warm Ides of March, Spring Having Arrived A Week Early
So much easier these days to appear middle-aged!
Moon’s out walking too – only its topmost perimeter,
frosted white, is visible in this nearly spring blue noon sky.
Maybe that’s how I’m seen today
as I pass through quiet intersections:
almost invisible but for the borders of my graying temples.
Night [after and for Mei Yao-ch’en]
夜
NIGHT
日從東溟轉, 夜向西海沉.
The unhurried day drizzles, turns
westward and sinks beneath the sea.
羣物各已息, 衆星燦然森.
All things hold their breath, the stars
just right, glorious like the forest.
蝦蟇將食月, 魑魅爭出陰.
The toad on the moon eats,
the demons strive to come out of the clouds.
阮籍獨不寐, 徘徊起彈琴.
The city dozed fitfully, alone, hesitated,
then rose and picked up its instrument.
*
[Note: This is a first draft of a work based on a poem of Mei Yao-ch’en (1002-1060), about whom I have written many poems on this blog. As with the previous poem I shared, this will likely change greatly from its current state to a final accurate version more worthy of being called a translation. The method I’m following is unusual but feels most natural for me — To write an impression of the poem gathered into my own poem in English, and then to continue to write a poem in English, and another, with the hope that each one gets closer and closer to my friend Sheng-yu’s poem in its traditional Chinese characters, till they are at least close enough to nod at each other or share a bottle of wine. Chen Zhang, who is busy at Harvard finishing her dissertation while teaching as the Chinese Literary Preceptor up there in Cambridge, furnished me with the traditional characters for Mei’s poem. I will keep you updated on any new versions. ]
#fullmoonsocial // Icicle and Full Moon
icicle and full moon
one grows from its attachment
one shines in the divide
Midwinter Dream Fragments
Midwinter Dream Fragments
A silent movie walks into a bar.
Far off to the east fragments of cloud
hover in the foreground, closing credits. The clear blue sky
revolves behind them like a child’s picture lamp
before it catches on fire. But the sky does not move.
Only the clouds are moving, their vacancy signs
flashing as they pass the moon.
Still
Still
Waiting on this cold night for the moon to rise over the roof
of the house next to mine. So cold if the stars shiver the sky
will crack. So still that a moon cannot rise.
Still enough that I get tired of waiting on the world’s motions,
crawl in bed and shoulder under the blanket
and when I raise my head stars and moon have sped their arc
into tomorrow, the spears of dawn are rattling in the street,
and nothing has stayed still about the world
except my place in it, beside you, still spooning me
in your sleep, your breath soft on my neck as a bird
shadow skims the winter wind outside the window
and a shaking branch stands by, slurs, stills, and you stir.
*
for my wife Mary, on her birthday.
Conditional
Conditional
Frost flourishes in the shade like flowers in the sun–
the gain may be temporary but isn’t the temporary
gain all that can be measured and for frost after all
isn’t the temporary a permanence itself? External
conditions set it stony and sharp, a marker
of the cold we feel—things being different
it might be the drop of dew in which
you glimpse the moon you’d otherwise miss
Through a window, December night after rain
Through a window, December night after rain
Negative space of roof and branches
are defined by the rising moon, crow-sized
negative image of the crow’s solid eye. Just the other
day, a young pileated woodpecker stood
right where the moon is tonight, as bright,
exactly as big, cartoonish, sounding like a monkey
afraid of the moon in the leafless branches
Ash Leaf
Ash Leaf
Watching the moon
through a hole
in an ash leaf
*
What a caterpillar
didn’t eat frames a
thousand years
*
This poem is a leaf
where what’s missing
reveals the other side and
what’s left behind is
bound to fall
Translations from the English 