Monday, December 7, 2020

In the Fall the Wisdom Of Japanese Temples Is at Its Deepest

 

Only in the Fall

leaves begin to reach

their beauty’s peak,

 

and something new,

other, and eternal

begins to peek

 

through them at us then

as we walk by amidst all

their colors released at last,

 

and the year-long light

that had been stored inside

begins to turn dry and thin

 

as rice paper a certain point

of which is to give birth

to someone’s painting

 

with old pining or a poem

on a tip of a wetted brush

so that its word or love

 

may go and ford

over spans of unknown ages.

Somehow it’s odd that the Gods

 

gave such death and boon

to so many trees and leaves

and to so few of human mortals—

 

to reach their beauty’s peak

in this way at the end at last,

thus rekindling from the cold

 

the light’s fire—back

from their crunching embers

to the source of silent stars

 

as the wind arrives to read,

to recite, and to dust rustling

words of their laid-down verses

 

and as the mist is moving in

with its spiderweb to reveal

the soul’s yet unseen dimension,

 

transformation and a different birth.

 


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