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by Richard Luftig
The Four Kinds of Writing Paper
(From the Chinese)
Wild Geese
Swallows, willows, sparrows, spruce.
Wild geese scattered among white pine.
Flying and migratory,
like children coming home
to visit aging parents.
Transitory guests in the house.
Blue Cloud
Wisteria in clear wind.
A sky speckled in sunlight.
It is the clouds' turn to talk.
The moon stands respectfully
waiting to search sleeping stars
for its genealogy.
Cicada Wing
Who would have guessed seventeen
years the time to be reborn?
Old age now measured in days.
Death arriving in a month.
Better to never see offspring
than to watch them grow old alone.
Six Times Lucky
How lucky and difficult
to complete anything in life.
Still, gardens move to the edge
of hayfields, solitary
bees bustle among flowers
searching for their communion.
Ten-Thousand
The Chinese believed
ten-thousand things
make up the world
but combined in all
their different ways
create the universe.
From my window,
I watch a world turn
yellow- to- brown around
huddling finches and create
a universe of reasons why
you still may come back. |