potato vine (poem)

sitting, all I can do
today, a little gardening

the wind carries spirits, my own
heart is agitated

the fern's fractal leaf, a jasmine star
flower on a potato vine

smell of black earth humus.
my hands reach more deeply into it.

butter and blood (poem)

Fear lives in the throat.
I can feel it three fingers down
from the soft basin,
thimbleful of fear.

It tastes of butter and blood
the cheek bitten
the breath drawn in.

Some days it is impossible for me to leave
my house.

All day I eat it down
it mingles with the food
but does not move.

Like a swallow
it circles,
crying.

the sound of a mandolin (poem)

palm fronds play the dusk wind, dip into the present
a string of moments
on the notes of a mandolin.

my hand on the windowsill, his hand poised
on a string. these are simple things.
even the palm fronds, they too

are simple things adrift
like us. the sea beyond a veil
of muslin. the player beyond the night.

hapu'u (poem)

early morning, wooden
floors cold, I sit by the little

black stove. in this glass
cottage, amidst the hapu'u

ferns. in the evening,
I will make tea

for my teacher, the man
I love, but for now

I enjoy the solitude
of cold

the warmth of this
Kazakh robe.

Laka (poem)

for E. and C.

late afternoon, mist's wet
breath exhales on this temple, curls around
the eaves. I pad through the house
in my slippers, light candles, strike
the gongs. Each sound answers the waiting
trees outside - yes, they agree - it is now
dusk. In the garden, small green worms
nestled in the tea's leaves, move deeper
for some warmth.

Noise from the day is put away.
Cardinals, red silk sashes, now folded
into the forest. Kitchen fire glows, a bowl
of steaming porridge and persimmons, scent of
magnolia blossom steals in through the cracks
around the doors. Gathered around the stove
together we wait - the trees, the house and I -
for laka
to inhale, reveal the stars.



*laka is the Hawaiian god of the mist.

koi garden (poem)

I want to sit on stone. feel its cool roots twine
up my spine and hold me. gargoyle on a temple.

I want to let my eyes go soft: two
underbellies of fish, swimming.

I want to hear my breath, distant leaves,
soft touching of green and silver palms.

I want my silence to be a garden. full-bloom
with water lilies. voiceless throats open to the sky.

to sadness (poem)

Sadness, you weigh, like the house-eaves
during monsoon rain. my hair, wet

from the bath. Sadness, you roll
wooden boat in the bay's wake, single blossom

blown down the path. Sadness,
you pool, finding basins in weak places

hollows of my bones, depressions
in the grass. Sadness, you rest

like dew on stone (moist kiss) then withdraw
from the land like mist.

fall, contemplating attachment (poem)

beside the river, a tree wears the burnt
umber dhoti of the guru

on this urban mountain (monk-
bald), sky is a himalayan poppy

prayers are wind-horses: we are told this.
the Self: paper
flags falling, shed leaves of maple.

and yet --
this tree...
serpentine, betel bijoux
beneath a thousand cycling moons.

willow bridge (poem)

dusk: you are a monk
in the garden, crossing a willow

bridge. my arms: thin, strong
rails beneath your hands.

gentle lap of spring-fed
creek, groans of the tree-

boughs. your soft feet beneath
your robes, arched wood

of my body. the steady rise
and fall of your breathing

and your return: cherry
blossoms in your hair.

spring essence (poem)

for the Vietnamese poet Ho Xuan Huong

your two pink
chinese tree peonies
roll in the breeze
anemones tasting
the sea-deep blush
of flushed cheeks
rising to the surface
and sinking, a diver
for conch shells

your two bamboo
knees knocking, opening
and closing, opening
and closing
wings on a moth's back
paper fans
in white hands

a snail winds
its trail across
your two thighs
pale sail in the night
long pearl
tongue of moon.