Night Smoke
Incomplete, it rises
only to dissipate
like the griefs we shape,
somehow unnoticed,
beyond reach but felt.
Last night’s moon, the glance.
Forgotten stars, a withheld
kiss, words we never formed.
How difficult to be lost.
So easy to remain unseen.
This first appeared in 1988, in Aileron. At the time I was experimenting with movement and breath and line, and wrote quite a few of these meditations in this form, some more successful than others.
where breath begins
it ends consider
light its secret
structure the sense
of limit defined
if a hand
recalls what the
eye cannot which
is the source
of remembrance one
touches more deeply
or allows itself
to be touched
a difference only
in the approach
Jingting Shan Hill (after Li Po)
Distant birds flying high
the lonely cloud and I drift
watching each other without end
until only the hill remains.
As always, I question my choices. Chinese-Poems.com offered this transliteration of Li Po’s timeless poem:
Crowd birds high fly utmost
Lonely cloud alone go idle
Mutual watch both not tire
Only be Jingting Shan
How to capture the concept of idleness and the meditative quality of the last line (not to mention the piece as a whole)? Ah, decisions, decisions…
Confession: The last line confounded me, so I set the poem aside for a couple of months. Just yesterday I pulled it out and immediately knew what to do. The power of patience…
O at the Edges 