In the back yard the girl is digging a hole
to China, while in the lavender the bees mutter
in anticipation and in the tree red winged blackbirds
flash their epaulets. The girl strikes gold!
The bees hum out the news, the blackbirds flutter
semaphore. Now for the hose, the hole wants to become a lake.
Did mother call? The birds, the bees, the girl pretend they haven’t heard.
Doesn’t she know about digging holes? Some tasks can’t wait.
Future, in general: passim
Future, auguries of: see Past, future of; Past, memories of; Dreams, in general; Nightmares, in general
Future, fear of: passim
Future, grammatical tense: see Language, limitations of
Future, history of: see Past, in general; Past, future of; Present, in general; Present, history of
Future, inevitability of: see Future, inevitability of
Future, longing for: see Past, limitations of; Present, limitations of; Future, memories of
Future, memories of: see Memory, memories of the future
see also: Dreams, memory and; Dreams, nightmares and
see also: Memory; Memory, dreams and; Memory, transitive property of
see also: Nightmares, in general
see also: Past, predictions about; Past, resemblances to the future
Future, mutability of: passim
Future, resemblance to the past: see Future, inevitability of
see also: Language, limitations of
see also: Past, resemblance to the future
see also: Present, limitations of
Future, visitors from the: see Memory
Future, what I make of: see Future, fear of; Future, longing for; Future, resemblance to the past
Future, what it’s for: see Future, longing for; Language, limitations of
Use me
Use me
Never let me go
Hold still
After the kiss
After the kiss
Hold still
Breath, eyes, memory
Perfect
Perfect
Perfect
Perfect
And then things fall apart.
The hours
Counting backwards
Shatter me
And then things fall apart
Breath, eyes, memory
Strain
And then things fall apart
Never let me go
Where she went
After the kiss
After the kiss
Hold still
I dreamed the streets of Katmandu
Were full of flowers
As the earth-mother mountains
Were shrugging off their glaciers
While a sea rose up somewhere
And vultures dreamed of feasts
But a young woman smiled and said
Nothing’s too much to bear
And sure enough she had sung
Her child to sleep
And the streets of Katmandu
Were full of flowers.
The birds gave autumn up for dead
But made a song before they fled
Here are the words they sang and said:
Oh, no, it’s the end of the world!
Oh, no, it’s the end of the world!
Oh, no, it’s the end of the world!
Let’s scatter the nests and fly away!
The frogs have sunk and turned to stone
The seeds are sleeping, each alone,
The rest of the world may do as it pleases
When we are gone, gone, gone, gone.
But Spring hatched from December’s nut;
The grass turned green and the ram sprang up;
The birds returned from where they’d flown
Acting as if they’d always known;
The frogs from their stony sleep uncurled
And the birds made song for the beginning of the world.
We were all pretty sure the sky was blue
Though no one would put it in writing
And take the risk of one day being proved wrong.
Was it so wrong not to tempt fate? So wrong
To wriggle off the hook, and not risk feeling blue
At later, maybe, having to waste time righting
A wrong easily avoidable by just not writing
Anything? It was all right, then, not to write, right? Wrong:
We had a chance to take a stand — a chance we blew:
To say, Blue; or, Not blue; be right, or wrong; and nothing riding on it.
(after Li Bai)
Ten thousand September winds were blowing.
Ten thousand slivers of moon
peered through ten thousand windows of Chang-an,
where ten thousand women were pounding out silk
so every Chang-an household
could send warm clothes to the front.
Ten thousand September winds froze us at Yuguan Pass,
ten thousand slivers of moon
shone their feeble light
into ten thousand foxholes,
silvering the living and the dead like early frost, although
the living and the dead alike
were dressed warmly, anyway.
All that month I prayed I would meet my enemy soon,
so that one of us, at least,
could go home to see his wife again.
A prompt from NaPoWriMo.net (“Today I challenge you to write a poem in which you explore what you think is the cruelest month, and why”) jibed nicely and prompted me to finish my version of this poem from Li Po:
長安一片月
萬戶擣衣聲
秋風吹不盡
總是玉關情
何日平胡虜
良人罷遠征
Chang-an + one + slice/sheet + month/moon
10,000 + household + pound + clothing + sound
autumn + wind + blow + never to be + exhausted
(total + yes) | always + (jade) | (off love) (turn off situation)
what + day + level | (ripening) + Hu + prisoner
(good + man) | beloved + stop + (far + levy) | expedition
If you prefer a translation… there are any number out there. Here is a representative one:
Chang-an — one slip of moon;
in ten thousand houses, the sound of fulling mallets.
Autumn winds keep on blowing,
all things make me think of Jade Pass!
When will they put down the barbarians
and my good man come home from his far campaign?
Image (because great poetry is anachronistic): Chinese soldiers in fox holes, (ca. 1942), from the U.S. Office of War Information, via U.S. Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/98517523/). This photograph, as a U.S. government work, is unprotected by copyright.
If things are as I suspect
There is another world
Where I am the lover
Of the driver
Of the morning bus
Where he awoke predawn
And slipped from our bed
Where a thread of lamplight
Shone under the door
And I heard the soft
Beginnings of the day
As he made coffee
I’d drink later
Where I shut my eyes
As if in prayer
Pulled the bedclothes
Around me like arms
That smelled comfortingly
Of last night’s cigarettes
And sex
Where I lay quiet
Until I heard his cup
Set on the countertop
Until the light went out
Until I heard the door
To the other world open
Then heard the door
to the other world
Shut.
1.
Then there was
that morning: you, the sun;
and I woke
thinking: the world
will always be this way
full of you.
2.
The waiter came
bringing perfect coffee, perfect spoons,
not knowing yet;
took one look
and gave you your name
saying: Happy Girl!
3.
You, oh you
were my first only; be
my only last.
Bag of Anything 