one by one, these autumn days
are stripped away
by an unseen wind. dreams
locked so mutely in the heart
perhaps are lost forever,
and unlike the fading flowers,
they are not renewable.

the night comes like a lone stranger,
uncertain of its way, and the dawn
shrinks the soul with its pollyanna
optimism, all make-believe, egocentric,
in the face of twisted trees, victims
of reality's winds.

the ash tree bows over the balcony,
like a thoughtful man brooding
over dark events and the treacherous
aftermath of a bright mirror shrouded
in a storm's black cloth.  but no one's life
is perfect. it is senseless to maneuver
around furniture in an unlighted house.

best to leave them as they are:
blurred, unclear shapes
from the past, be they gems
or garbage, in the subsurface
of your heart's shifting, changing sea.
let's just do as we have always done--
and get on with
this bewildering business of living

how sick you must be of my poetry!  those halting footsteps
entering the shadows of  the bamboo grove,
where mist hangs like gauze.  the best verses can be read
on the needles of the stunted pine tree and
the cracked knees of the quan yin statue.
i always loved the romantic notion of drinking wine
on the stone bench under the dripping moonlight,
arms wrapped around each other, a shiver
from a sudden chill---

but i never really did like wine.

nonetheless, winter in massachusetts though seemingly
endless, has never yet ,in any year, failed to end.
we'll find a shelter for May, a little sparrow arriving in spring storms,
huddled in the weeping cherry.  evening winds will
fill their sails with the scent of clover, clouds will sail
their sampans of gold.    there are maps inside us still.
maps back to a time-obliterating village in a dream

a dream i still believe in