Mockingbird
Withdrawn, it unfolds
to another
voice, like that
of a child lost in the wind.
Or, lonely, it rises from its place
and sings, only
to return and start again.
The pleasure we accept derives from
the knowledge that we are not alone.
Each morning we walk out and sit
by the stones, hoping to observe some
new patterns in his life. What we
see is an answer. What we hear is no song.
Galveston, 1900
First the wind, then a tide like no other
uprooting the calm,
a visage tilted back in descent
as if listening for the aftermath.
And later, the gardener’s lament
and the building’s exposed ribs,
light entering the eternal
orchard, nine children tied to a cincture.
Not even the earth could retain its bodies,
and the sea remanded those given to its care.
Self-Portrait with Knife
Lacking benefit of prayer or belief,
it slips through flesh,
praising its temerity. Or,
parting the onion’s core, reclaims
the right to weep.
How many nights have we shared
these pleasures? I smooth the blade
with steel, listening to the fine hum.
Chipotle
Sometimes it pauses and the light
translates what we’ve lost,
momentarily framing the taste
entering our bodies through
mouth and nose and eye,
the knowledge of dissolution
enhanced. One bite
and it all returns: fire, peat,
water, the retracted
flesh become another’s
endeavor, as if giving form
to the world of air.
Without remorse,
we steal its most intimate self.
Japanese Gardens
how natural the
lines falling so
purely as if
with a single
stroke we walk
through the opening
and see space
the white center
composed of sand
and gravel later
a gate opens
to another garden
its lantern and
stone so carelessly
arranged so deliberate
I’ve three poems appearing in The Blue Hour Magazine:
http://thebluehourmagazine.com/2014/12/28/3-poems-by-robert-okaji/
The sonnet was written a dozen years after the others, but seemed to mesh with them in some strange way…
Bonsai
no feature enhanced
but beauty of
the whole and
its container the
tree is not
deprived and grows
as it must
though slowly like
a wave which
gathers itself for
years there is
no completion only
process a lapse
which presumes the
most delicate design
Originally published in Aileron in 1988.
Inquisition
1.
I breathe smoke
from the fire
warming our feet
Something is not right
but not wrong
yet
like the bones’ dance
on wires
in a bad dream
Fear’s sharp blade twists
burning with the slow
heat of coals
2.
I cannot read ashes
the message
of cracked stones in desert light
nor the poetry
of the cow’s skull
white on dark sand
What right has a man
And the snake’s
quivering tongue tasting
what the air brings to him
One of my earliest published pieces, this first appeared in Taurus, in 1984. Curiously, this is not the piece that I remembered having been published in Taurus. I wonder if that poem still exists somewhere? Such is memory…
Tree
where you go
the wind follows
as if no
choice remains but
that of sun
and oak an
attraction such that
limbs curve to
light a certainty
which cautions us
to intrude lest
we lose all
sight and sense
of beauty you
are this tree
Sheng-yu’s Lament (after Mei Yao-ch’en)
First heaven took my wife,
and now, my son.
These eyes will never dry
and my heart slowly turns to ash.
Rain seeps far into the earth
like a pearl dropped into the sea.
Swim deep and you’ll see the pearl,
dig in the earth and you’ll find water.
But when people return to the source,
we know they’re gone forever.
I touch my empty chest and ask, who
is that withered ghost in the mirror?
The transliteration on Chinese-poems.com reads:
Heaven already take my wife
Again again take my son
Two eyes although not dry
(Disc) heart will want die
Rain fall enter earth in
Pearl sink enter sea deep
Enter sea can seek pearl
Dig earth can see water
Only person return source below
Through the ages know self (yes)
Touch breast now ask who
Emaciated mirror in ghost
O at the Edges 