The Long Foam

Trees without leaves

Trees in flower

What is contained between

In the bud

Of imminent coexistence

May be a bubble or not

Thoughts escape their container

Seasonally

It is not always a crime

At least not self-inflicted

When a circle breaks

Into another circle

Many in the pond

Would argue old Bashō was

A secret ninja

So deft in composing

In rhythm with the end

Of all things

And seldom ripping throats

Soft, the hand reaches down

Subtle fingers to pluck

The sewing girl’s needle

From the paralyzed frog

Remember when we lay

On the banks of the river

Two holes in our shirt

From the snares we made

Out of reeds when we rubbed

Grass on our faces to see

What we’d look like older

Much later, the tired village opens

Its reflection in dank loam

Bilious pools and shorn casements

A less than stealthy resignation 

Froth issues from the frog’s mouth

Flecked blades of grass tiny petals

Slowly submerged in the foam

As the white bubbles grow

And alter the direction of the light

In each lenticular orb

So that our scene is myriad

Again

Unsightly the ninja never stops for long

When the globose faces gather

To stare at the mortal hands operant

In the bubble of time a circle feracious

The Lake

Are we then never to rest in port a single day,

Driven ever onward to unknown shores,

Till at last we are swept away into eternal night

Never to return?

O lake, another year has galloped to its close

And she meant to see your lovely waves again,

But look, I sit here alone on the same rock

Where you first saw her.

Then, too, you moaned beneath the plunging crags,

Then, too, you slammed against their shattered faces,

And just like this the wind scattered your foam

At her precious feet.

That evening – do you recall?  Drifting in silence

Between water and sky, we could only hear

The rhythms of the rowers striking in unison

Your waves like a drum.

Suddenly, a new accent was heard on the earth,

Stunning the magic echoes of the shore:

The waves quieted, and the voice that I love

Spoke these syllables:

“O time! Interrupt your flight, and you, hours of happiness!

Interrupt your flow:

Permit us to savor the rapid delights of the best days

We will ever know!

Fly, fly for the unhappy multitude here on earth,

They implore you;

The hours you steal will blunt their hungry cares;

Forget the happy few.

It is useless to beg for a few seconds more,

Time eludes our fingers;

I tell the night:  pass more slowly; and already

It no longer lingers.

Let us love, now, now, while we live; it is late,

Hurry, let us enjoy!

We have no haven; time has no destination;

It slips away, we die.”

Jealous time, is it true, the delirious hours of love

That we gulped down like happiness in a bottle,

Do they depart from us at the same velocity

As unhappy days?

But may we not at least preserve their trace?

What! they are gone for good? are they totally lost?

Time gives, time takes away; and nothing is

Ever coming back.

Eternity, nothingness, the past, abyssal depths,

What have you done with the days you have devoured?

Speak:  will you give back to us the sublime joys

You stole like a kiss?

O lake! silent rocks! caverns! dark woods!

You who are spared by time, who are born anew,

Preserve that evening, beautiful nature, keep

Its memory alive!

Preserve it in your stillness and your storm,

Beautiful lake, and in the aspect of your smiling hills;

Let it imbue the black firs and savage peaks

That hang over you;

Let it dwell in the breeze that trembles in passing,

In the echoes from shore to shore repeating,

In the face of the silver orb that lights your water

With its soft pallor;

Let the crying of the wind, the sighing reeds,

The imperceptible perfumes of your embalmed air,

All we may hear, see, and smell, let it all declare:

They were once in love!

Alphonse de Lamartine (1820)

Bunches

The moon shines down on the water

Even after the first time

Playing golf on an island

Small enough to meet you again

If these islands are a system

That can explain the distance

Between as something other

Than the slow geology

That brings us together

And apart so briefly

Shifting the focus of affection

To the drift to furtive glances

Through the telescope

(breakfast in bamboo huts

and tea with raw fish)

Then I will find a way

To send a backwards sign

By smoke by subtext

Or maybe by moon

When you are not watching

And I am not home

T Ceremony

We are a crowd in the clouded spaces

Eyes turned in every direction

Reporting from the general collection,

As it were, a painting hung in the east gallery

Up for forensic analysis

People mill and eddy in and out of frame

Red string delineates the lines of sight,

The path traced, the discharge, the flight

From each eye in the scene – and yet,

As the twine laces the gallery

No two lines intersect or meet

Let me sit in this room

And paint on its walls

Sleep in the temple

And copy, copy, copy

Then clean the floor, very