Note: While preparing for the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival — and working on some book design for “The Drift” and “Moon & Shadow” (tentative title for the collection of poems featuring Mei Yao-ch’en) — I will from time to time post a poem from one of my books published before I began this blog. This is from The Artificial Horizon, published in 2013.

No. 36

Quiet night. Even the crickets are whispering,
Beneath the green stamp of this date, your name
In a language I can’t speak but can read.
Above the summer moon’s shiny memory
A thought of you coaxes deep stars
Into the precise constellation
That is your voice saying my name.
The rudder of years has shown my choice.
This year will not accumulate around you
Any better than a kitten accumulates moths.
The moment is the distribution, not a sum.
Of everything a cricket can sing, or not.
Of every thing you understand because it’s not clear and caught.
So I will walk in the empty feeling house.
The night hangs on every wall, black mirrors.
When I look at it I see myself looking in
Wondering what I am doing out there without you.
The danger of reflection is thinking you’re alone
When you’re not. Of thinking crickets without voices
Are whispering your name when it’s me whispering,
In a language I can’t read but can speak.