Riding through Vermont

 

The long meadows grew

sunshine early autumn gold

melted gently with the breeze,

and the roads sunk and sang

in quiet, languid drowsiness.

 

And the Adirondacks,

the Green Mountains,

and the gleaming lake,

again in the shades of blue,

wove the horizons as new,

 

laced in their timeless clasp

and vows of love to last—

one another each would woo.

And there on the way below

the canopy of colored trees

 

on the road quaint and thin—

a gossamer of Summer Indian

made to catch and play and plunk

light’s beams on its single string,

a random beauty guardant smile

 

there strummed and larked about,

splashing into eyes bewitching art,

its ancient spell—Artemisian charm,

cast to remember that September by—

spurring its rider-preys into poem’s sounds.

In Remembrance of Su Shih

 

Lo, poem is a trace of heart,

its beat, and rhyme

that lace the air

into ordered strains.

 

Lo, poem is a trace of heart

that elicits the elusive

beings’ inner patterns.

From time’s locking eclipse.

 

See-through responsiveness

by which the heart and its song

endure, riding on the tranquility

of a lighthearted leaf with a bit of writing.

 

Behold on this note—

Su Shih—born into a common

family from the less educated,

who never ceased to criticize

 

an unjust government

for which he spent most of life

in exile in the provinces

and was nearly executed

 

and whose wife burned

many of his poems on a river boat;

He is the side of the mountain

that welcomes Morning Sun,

 

wandering like water

in between one’s leaves and lives

and their sparkling gleams—

souls’ mirrored, spotted glimpse

 

by ch’an stillness—recluse search—

deities’ canvas—

and its paths and doors and windows,

giving himself to them over—and over.

 

Thus like mellifluous tea when it is poured,

spreading open and pure

both the guest and the host

while a moment and the immortal 

 

come and meet and stay

and like water and its flash

ascending in natural, inherent consent

            in joy to depth and clarity,

 

like morning clouds and mist

rinsed and cleansed

of the acrid and the base:

which poems purify the soul as well?

 

That perennial lay is the parent of mine.

That tranquil lightness of the egret’s flight.

Why, isn’t poetry a timeless trace of heart?

“First across the snow—on a river bridge”?

Better (and Those Romantic) Loves Are Like Japanese Schools of Flower Arrangement

 

Before the deshabille of evening love

loosened in its rhythm like a flow

released and relaxed with free verse,

easy elegance of its afternoon gives

 

its bridging legs that move to pointillism

and its subtle sting of a fluxing gaze

that makes distance disappear—

and with that stroke all is being changed

 

as her eyes like a master cast and paint

a beauty line on you—across time and space,

their line anew, the figure worth of every gold

 

which, as pollen dust, all the flowers in the world

may bring and breathe—that light of stars transformed,

so it can sense and live and scent her with a love-in-deed.

 

By the Sea Looking in Vain for the Sons of Poe

By the sea and when the

morning comes,

people appear

learning again

the art of slow walk

and its quiet point,

so sadly missed 

all those years

of feverish and fervent 

busy-ness to make

what serves

as a stand-in 

for all things,

both real and unreal,

which doesn’t allow

one to serve the good

for its own sake,

for only true

and pure souls

or true Platonists

could have their

communist utopia,

but you shouldn’t 

try it with the devils

as Russia proved

with the help

of all the other

devils who fought

and could not stand it.

But here where the land

ends and the sea begins,

slow walk for its own sake,

like love simply for loving

for which no one needs be paid,

hired, fired, or enslaved,

is like a long-lost dream

to which some have been

somehow again awakened.

Haven’t the greatest things

in life been—didn’t they have 

to be—gifts to us, free gifts 

of a free will and not loans,

titles, loans, licenses, or pays?

Oh, let the art of slow walk

be blessed—slow enough to

notice that you breathe

and how freely each breath 

comes in and goes out again

to keep you live and sentient.

And in that unhurriedness

something returns and expands

and what expands opens

what has been closed or

even dead—for, you learn,

one shouldn’t—cannot rush

headlong through a wonder.