27. One Needs No Paradise When the Rain Falls
One needs no Paradise when the rain falls,
and clouds are not scattered by the wind.
No one's around, the grasses bend at their belt buckles,
Boughs droop and the rain keeps coming down.
There is an edgy serenity in solitude,
when the rain falls and the wind stops,
The perpetual presence of absence, where all things are still.
Rain over everything like sunlight,
out of the clouds.
Shining in strings and beads, a giant hush,
Like tongues in the afterlife.
Clouds like the smokey after-effect of forest fires,
High-drift and hang.
Out of the stillness, a small splendor.
The line between heaven and earth is a grass blade,
a light green and hard to walk.
Bigfoot, the north wind, slaps through the trees
Looking for something that we can't know,
or even, perhaps, have heard of,
Pushing the boughs aside,
always gone, just out of sight.
Sunlight fills in his footprints.
After the answer, there's always another question,
Even the last one.
At least we have that to count on.
I am an image picker.
I like the ripe ones,
the ones at the ends of the listing limbs.
To know one's self is the final yes, of course.
The no,
However, is right behind it, and just as final.
How easy to lose oneself in the orchard,
this tree and that,
Everything shiny, everything slick and close to hand.
The evening prepares for the invisible,
the absence of itself.
Clouds defuse. White cat on the fence pole
Haunched on her throne.
Bird feathers glued to the windowglass
Where finch attempted his noon flight through the visible.
Better to keep your head down,
asleep in the darkening trees.
Nothing can stop it. One sweep of its cape and it's gone.
The morning is almost silent and cannot declare itself.
Therefore, I say unto it,
you are the never-boring miracle
Of sunlight and scrappy cloud,
The absence of rain when rain is absent,
as it is
This morning, green with its wonderment,
Last night's hard frost a wet memory
Scattered in bits and glitzy pieces
deep in the grass.
The ten horses of the field are like
the cities of the plain,
A necessary moment
Of everything that is, and was, and will be again,
The sunlight grows big
immensity
Of noon approaching, its spurs flashing and its saber on fire.
The green backs off a bit, and mumbles. And so do we.
I have nothing to say. I am a recording machine,
a listening device.
What I hear is what I will tell you.
I am the sluice of dead scrolls and songs,
I am the tongue of what exists,
Whose secrets are whispered and not heard.
Listen to me, listen to what's the nothing I have to say.
The shadows of the floating world
huddle beneath their objects.
Slowly, like hands on a massive clock,
They soon will begin their own crawl and creep
to bring us back
Tick-tock in their black sack, tick-tock in their soft black sack.
Lord of the sunlight,
Lord of the left-over, Lord of the yet-to-do,
Handle my heaven-lack, hold my hand.
From Poetry Northwest, Fall 2006/Winter 2007. Copyright University of Washington. Used with Permission.
and clouds are not scattered by the wind.
No one's around, the grasses bend at their belt buckles,
Boughs droop and the rain keeps coming down.
There is an edgy serenity in solitude,
when the rain falls and the wind stops,
The perpetual presence of absence, where all things are still.
Rain over everything like sunlight,
out of the clouds.
Shining in strings and beads, a giant hush,
Like tongues in the afterlife.
Clouds like the smokey after-effect of forest fires,
High-drift and hang.
Out of the stillness, a small splendor.
The line between heaven and earth is a grass blade,
a light green and hard to walk.
Bigfoot, the north wind, slaps through the trees
Looking for something that we can't know,
or even, perhaps, have heard of,
Pushing the boughs aside,
always gone, just out of sight.
Sunlight fills in his footprints.
After the answer, there's always another question,
Even the last one.
At least we have that to count on.
I am an image picker.
I like the ripe ones,
the ones at the ends of the listing limbs.
To know one's self is the final yes, of course.
The no,
However, is right behind it, and just as final.
How easy to lose oneself in the orchard,
this tree and that,
Everything shiny, everything slick and close to hand.
The evening prepares for the invisible,
the absence of itself.
Clouds defuse. White cat on the fence pole
Haunched on her throne.
Bird feathers glued to the windowglass
Where finch attempted his noon flight through the visible.
Better to keep your head down,
asleep in the darkening trees.
Nothing can stop it. One sweep of its cape and it's gone.
The morning is almost silent and cannot declare itself.
Therefore, I say unto it,
you are the never-boring miracle
Of sunlight and scrappy cloud,
The absence of rain when rain is absent,
as it is
This morning, green with its wonderment,
Last night's hard frost a wet memory
Scattered in bits and glitzy pieces
deep in the grass.
The ten horses of the field are like
the cities of the plain,
A necessary moment
Of everything that is, and was, and will be again,
The sunlight grows big
immensity
Of noon approaching, its spurs flashing and its saber on fire.
The green backs off a bit, and mumbles. And so do we.
I have nothing to say. I am a recording machine,
a listening device.
What I hear is what I will tell you.
I am the sluice of dead scrolls and songs,
I am the tongue of what exists,
Whose secrets are whispered and not heard.
Listen to me, listen to what's the nothing I have to say.
The shadows of the floating world
huddle beneath their objects.
Slowly, like hands on a massive clock,
They soon will begin their own crawl and creep
to bring us back
Tick-tock in their black sack, tick-tock in their soft black sack.
Lord of the sunlight,
Lord of the left-over, Lord of the yet-to-do,
Handle my heaven-lack, hold my hand.
From Poetry Northwest, Fall 2006/Winter 2007. Copyright University of Washington. Used with Permission.
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.