i believe it's there
beneath the piles of crackling brush,  the infinite
snow
abandoned wells of frozen water     it's there
in the tinkling of the wind chimes
the empty roads
the pitted rock ledges
the moon's alms of light
the bamboo bending under snow
there in the seven-story pagoda
the paper that thirsts for ink
the heart that beats with the farthest star     it's there
the apostrophe in the scripture
the question you keep hidden     the stinging sleet
the ghosts between your night sheets
the empty closet in your hours      there
in the bird
you hold against your grief
there in the city of wrecked ships
there  in the rays from the fingertips of a saint
there in the swamp's frozen lilies
laughing in a thousand mirrors
there in the footnotes of your calloused shoes
there in the country of the past
there in the lustrous, untouched core of the future
there, where a blue note sets forth
in the four-sided cement-ness of the wall

it is there / love by a barred window

pristine.
still falling.
spread over the dirty world,
like immaculate ignorance.

finest flakes
blowing like dandelion seeds
or arranged on the balcony,
lace for the hem of an old-fashioned dress.

ultimately, i will have
to hold all
the conversation
with myself

no one could possibly get through to here,
even with state of the art snowshoes.
i am alone on an undiscovered continent

my world is
like a love waiting
to be discovered.

the snow shovel itself
is finally invisible, completely buried
and i am weak in my bones.

but no one will know.
i am the only person
in this vast white room

dawn comes with cold clothes
and frozen toes. i think of the rise
and fall of the bed covers where you sleep

i walk on the edge of ancient chinese texts
facing the snow falling with total abandon.
the split wood blanketed in deep white sadness
asks if love is only to be found in negligees
and nakedness

no need to regret the divide of distance
we can be as intimate as i was
in a sampan with Tu Fu
who sailed the yangtze 1,200 years before i did

you and i also sail on a gently rocking cloud
in the middle of a long dream
affectionately clinging to each other
amidst the aroma of wood smoke
mixed with pages of poetry

is this the afternoon of Ten Thousand Years?
i hear crows cawing and i catch falling snow
on my tongue to quench the thirst for world vanities

and for love

i will let the long day carry me to some
grassy dream.  my body sleeps fitfully
in its magic bed; quivers at the slightest
current of air.

and in my dreams, the wind repeats tales
of other dreams, stars burn bluer
than the cornflowers of childhood.

over ages of silence, Li Bai's boat scrapes
on the sandbar.  what quest was lost?
what wine was spilled?
what eyes have wept?

what dreams unveil the spirit
and who listens to the stars
as i do?

no more lamenting in the bamboo grove,
no more ghost cries of heroes
and kings long dead.

only snow.  snow and crows.

fairyland. boundless snow
and depthless cold
clawing at the wind

and in the oven, my thanksgiving turkey
cooking, weeks late.
words hang like frozen banners
in space. icicles are strung
like chimes. my computer erases
whole lines of poetry
at whim.

the hat i am knitting has
fifteen rows to go
and there are only two rows
left on the skein.

the gray fur ruffles gently
on a roadkilled cat,
as if by a cosmic caress.
it gets flatter
with every passing tire.

it was during a snowstorm
when my grandmother stopped speaking
and started waiting for death.
she would not look in a mirror.
she threw away her false teeth

and waited for ten irritable years.

death came in the night when she stopped waiting.

there are things to remember:
scraping a split hog,
planting rows of corn
with a baby on my back,
rocking a fractious child

to the sound that
bamboo makes in air
that is heavy with the scent
of honeysuckle.
i remember a cabin.
a husband.
and a summer night
when all the stars fell.

today the view from my window
is a fairyland covered
with white frosting.   snow a foot deep:

my plow guy called and quit

winter winds blow in from the eastern mountains
thousands of trees are sparse and bare,
covered with white.
windows are decorated
with lacy garlands of snow.   like silken threads
the moonlight glimmers on the quilt;
written on silk are your letters
that you send to me in dreams.

since yesterday, the pines
have been heavy with snow.
"dark fragrance, sparse shadows",
west of the balcony railing
a thousand trees blossom with snow
like flowering plums.
your hair like snow;
midnight snow like blossoms--
in my ageless dream,
it's hard to know the difference.

the white sky
is throwing snow, thick and heavy.
one day of clearing,
one week of clouds;
in the snow, sparrows leave prints
then fly away.
if they hadn't left so hurriedly, i would ask them
" beyond this sky, is there another sky?"

this night of wind and snow
is my love poem.
come and embrace my melting, springtime look.
i love you ( there is no phrase to substitute.)
please take care of my worried insecurity
( it's an intimate gesture to hand it over to you)

i'll carry you into my home
on a ragged poem.
i'll carry you into my home
on the back of the neighbor's barking dog.
i'll carry you into my home on your sudden guilt
and my fiercely tender grief.

you are my migratory bird on the wing
coming from a dream
to nest in the snowy north.   you carry
moonlight, pouring a deep stream
into the moist look in my eyes.
we are a conflagration of candle flames
standing in the solitary night,
the quest of moths by the riverbank
where the wild goose spreads its wings--
our hearts are its skyward flight.

dawn will come running through the snow,
shaking the windows with it's loud light.
snow, like white doves, will perch on each branch
of the pines.  it is there that that the sun will strike
our loneliness down, the clouds will part
and mutter dark echoes.
our love will float among trembling flakes of snow.
on the bosom of the sky
will be thousands of roses,
a fragrance evoking a whole world of love
a sky beyond the sky.
your footprints across this great divide
of time and distance
will fade in melting snow.
i will walk
out of a pale half-seashell
and sing in the moonlight.
the sky will warm
and the last stars of winter
will glitter like fireflies
poking holes in the cold curtain of night,
then fade to dawn.
the sun, like a juicy orange
will drop into the abyss of your heart,
where rings of dew will shatter.

my silk quilt will keep out the cold,
your dreams and mine will take one shape.
midnight, two o'clock, four in the morning--
finally together, too overcome to sleep
we'll hold each other close
and listen to the wind, listen to icicles drip,

listen to the beatific sighing of the pines

would you, on the year's longest nights,
count and recount mistakes
like a celebrity's indiscretions--your own
or someone else's?   would you think
that the twinge of love that followed
your thoughts was nothing but the shred
of a no-longer-valid persona?

as it turns out, nothing is that simple when
things are deep.  but the mind can
think eventually that it has vanquished the heart--
although eventually, the body will tell it otherwise.
now it is truly winter, the season of the only true promises.

the expansive cruelty of flowers is gone.
it's an adventure to walk this trail, novel in its own way,
irregular and assessing me in the past imperfect,
no longer an event specific to itself.

there must be something about the work in progress
that will redeem me this time, me, this classical figure
struggling halfway up a mountain.  only i , out of the two of us,
can still be foolish enough to search the vanishing snow
beneath my feet for our footprints

as if the wind could choose
what to preserve,
what to blow away

four degrees.

so far, so good,

not.

winter, if you ever end,
spring will wake up
wearing green pajamas

wake up from night
in that black skirt
that forever defies folding.

i admit i find it frustrating
that the plowman never once
considers the purpose of the exercise.

i still can’t get the car out.

but never mind that–once it was
the sort of thing i found irrelevant.
it was the root and fruit
holding a thousand years
in one core
and the fall of another star
into a shell
holding the roar of the sea
that had meaning.

but that was before i became
this bell already rung
with fallen dust inside my heart
and thoughts of home beyond a thousand sails–

my left shoe print : only afternoon,
my right shoe print : already evening.

i should stick to clouds
as a topic of poetry.
clouds in a greenless wind
from carved curves
toward sky beyond sky
and the moon slanting toward the west

as it speeds across the river

please don't love me for
my metaphors
only take away my images
and love the naked splendor
of my skin.
my pretty verses are only
drops of spray on a sea
of words, but please remember
they were once stars inlaid
on the skies of my heart.

my heart is an orphan boat
crossing a steady image of an ocean
where countless mountains
have sunk into the sea.
the Word of Heaven
is neither written nor read,
and the self-sufficient
universe only lives between the lines,
a naked rose of light, unadorned

it is the love
within the words that lives on--
tear stained sleeves
and hearts full of longing
perfume of flowers
or a harp melody
holding back the billowing flood
of the world... poems
are only signposts for the heart
on the bridge of time,
where the river and evening clouds
stretch away for a thousand miles

start with a blank sheet of paper,
virtual or otherwise.  it’s the paper
that writes the poem, the mind
abhors a vacuum–my boyfriend
used to say that.

you might find yourself writing
a memory or a memory of a memory
that remembered itself to you from another.
perhaps it was self-deprecating, or innocent,
or feigning innocence.

it is not always comfortable, but
there’s this blank sheet of paper,
virtual or otherwise, and a kind of
vague idea of what you want it to say
and the first memory in turn forgets itself

so that in the end you are not sure
what you really remember or what
you have forgotten.  still, there is an image
of water weeds trapping dragonflies
like liquid glass,

even as you drive away there is a
lone figure dressed in white.  she
is bending over the ground, looking
at something lost in the glare from the sun
against the peach colored sky

fading into irrelevance,
part of a fable people only tell
to remember themselves.
her eyes told other stories, ones
no one wanted to know

and somewhere on the page,
the blank sheet of paper, virtual or otherwise,
the wind wraps itself around
a stucco chimney

swirling the smoke skyward