i can think of you now
without loss
after flowers have withered

without asking
why people, if they have any direction,
always go toward separation

why, after the sun sets
passing time cannot bring back
our childlike foolish days

like the first blade of grass
turning barren land
into green fields

even though you should have told me
long ago, that where there are no gods,
there is no temple

finally i can think of you, no longer
star bedazzled nor resplendent
not in a beautiful dream or a dream of beauty

finally the pain is only a memory of pain
like the mirror of a lake
after a stone falls and the ripples have subsided

i see you vaguely cupped in twilight
maybe sitting by a window
or maybe outside in the yard
fanning away mosquitoes

the peaches are stunted this year

the word space feels empty
but sometimes it's a place being filled

there are puddles and puddles of silence
in the lake lying languid
and the sunlight festers
on black dirt and sumac roots.

none of this is necessarily true.

but with only a few
days left
i feel driven
to write a poem
even this shitty one about nothing
like a burlap sack under a walnut tree
that has no walnuts

all day
i have sat rocking time
back and forth
the shell of my life cracked into two distinct
moments, back and forth.
back and forth.

that's not entirely true either.

i had a companion, eleven years old.

standing on the porch
we saw a butterfly stumble
with torn wings
whose dull sparkles
forgot to shine.

all of my years in this blog
became packed into one tiny knot.

death is a second cousin dining
with my ex-lover's father,
semper fidelis.
a spider webs the corner of the room;
his heart staggers against his ribs.

a nymph goddess beckons
from a sung dynasty painting
porcelain fingers
streaming black hair

in the hollow palm of midnight
she answers with a lullaby

last night the moon was half empty
neither growing nor shrinking.
it crept out of my window

into the rest of darkness

only my lamp
with it's shade like an umbrella
soft with a yellow halo
will offer me such gallant shelter
from the dark downpour
of the night

only this cozy lamp holds me dear
night after night, in the aura
of love.   when night falls,
the lamp is on my side
and night is on the other side
in between
an endless whirlwind blows

is night for the bed
or for the lamp?  is it with the sleeping
or with the waking? in the end
the time comes in solitude and silence
to face my whispering ghosts
as i shoulder all the dark weight of night

the sleeping are launched
on a thousand pillows
to be ferried to a thousand dreams
the wakeful, like me, are keeping watch
over the same night that closes in--
it seems i've been sleepless for a thousand years

the lamp by my bed
the remote heir of torchlight
seems to have shone through a long night
that spans the centuries.   however deep the night
a few lamps like mine will always be shining
drilling holes through the darkness
to echo stars that have shone long before
lamps and beds were here

as i while away the minutes
until the guest arrives, no cars
are passing on the
Mountain of Gathering Remoteness.
yet there is a crossroads here,
the one where
love and loss,
life and death
intersect.

at any time that black limousine
might stop
and i'll watch you climb inside.

stars will fall like rain,
if only inside myself.

even when the sediments of history
quietly settle out
and embers with their flickering light
become ash-grey
i will say it one more time :  i love you.

one day i will come to the last page
of this book of mist and clouds,
and the urn of a dream
will shatter.even now,
the clay seal is breaking away
bit by bit. these moments
are compressed
into endless eternity
bathing the cosmos in light
like a collapsing galaxy

most of this summer
has been unseasonably cold
with its sunlight
sprinkled sparsely
on a stone wall

dawn oozes over the hills
like chilled syrup
with a few clouds
stuck in its puddle

the ancient pine begs the wind
to give it back its youthful figure

in late dusk, the meadow
spreads a great shadow

as twilight peers
in at my window
then shakes its head
and walks away

moonlight
drops handfuls of stars
in the tall grass

thoughts settle on their perches.

a single feather drifts down

perhaps, after your long night of despair
you woke to a fog, into which
your brain leaked.
or perhaps
you speak different tongues
in different rooms
and your last territory
is your bedroom.

perhaps your poetry
negates the crime
of having loved.

too depressed to talk
too ashamed to write
perhaps you are hiccuping at summer.

perhaps at dusk you are always
driving down the wrong streets,
cursing yourself;
and your life, full of wrong words,
is an unpublishable memoir.

Confucius said:  at thirty, a man stands.
at thirty, you had already left your life.

Confucius said : at forty, a man is no longer puzzled.
at forty you trembled at the sound of a love song,
guilt made you give up your past.
a wounded man
wants nothing but peace.

you learned from history that gazing at plums
can quench your thirst,
learned to adjust the seasons
with the wind, until
shadows lay on the ground,
clouds poured into your mouth,
moonlight meant forgetting,
a breeze meant kindness.
the sounds
outside your window
meant
history goes on
without you.

small is beautiful. small is clean. small is safe.
small like an egg, like a button, even smaller,

preserved like
a moth in amber.

"perhaps our hearts will have no reader"

i'm going to pretend that it's morning
and the fog has lifted
you have opened your eyes
and are looking at me,
smiling like a child

if there is a slight fragrance
left over from last night's incense
withered roses, fallen petals,
a white tee shirt draped
on the chair, embracing your trousers

it is just the remnants of a long dream.
something stirs this air
and pushes it to sheer ecstasy
melting into the spooned shape
of sleeping.

my heart has found its reader

i wonder how things are
on the other side of this screen,
these hills,
the sky..

here a wind is pecking at the leaves' tapestry
woven with the rays of the sun
and i hear a faint and tender echo
of the  wind chime,

notes bouncing off of wooden walls
and the shady hillside
rising higher
almost as high
as my thoughts of you

i kneel by the window
in the bright light
and listen to the grasshoppers' ticking
in the grass

tree branches mimic
your open arms
sunlight rolls like a wheel
across the rock ledge

my vision beyond time and space
feels all your gestures
like haze, like dancing butterflies
that brush against my flushing cheek--
is this what it's like
to love someone