In the tearoom we
debate winter coats: puffers,
Patagonia fleece.
On the long walk home,
a cold wind proves reason’s
futility; I
watch swans swim around, small heads
in and out of it.
In the tearoom we
debate winter coats: puffers,
Patagonia fleece.
On the long walk home,
a cold wind proves reason’s
futility; I
watch swans swim around, small heads
in and out of it.
There is poetry
in prose: Sato’s translations;
tenuous, wiry,
late Hill. Though today
is cold and dark, two swans show
up in the cove. This
happens: contingent,
beautiful, a shock to life’s
chiaroscuro.
Sexual grunts, roars
and so on make good poems
some say. I’ve read them.
Primal, they say. To-
day icy milky skies re-
flected in the Bay
recall Du Fu’s still
mind as well as the white fire
of her shining thighs.
I walk slowly to-
day. Today our tyrant has
flown into exile.
I enjoy the cold.
From dark clouds drift single flakes.
They melt on my face
and mix with warm tears.
Freedom comes and goes but so
do apple blossoms.
The appearance of
the winter sun at day’s end
is worth waiting for.
To the gray water
and things across the water
absolutes of time
and space no longer
matter. You can see Basho’s
white chrysanthemum.
My winter tanka
notebook on infinity
(open, immanent,
whole) includes how rak-
ing sunlight animates a
squirrel in the road—
its soft belly, o-
therwise not moving. Also
notes on clouds (of course),
immense, crystalline,
racing over the village,
going nowhere fast.
A break in the clouds.
The gulls shine in the steep air
over the Bay and
on the rough surface.
It happens countless times in
the life of a gull.
It can move a man
to tears. It’s hard sometimes to
not reach conclusions.
Out of the gaggle
the goose eyes me. I feel or-
dinary and ig-
norant. Buddha? I
breathed toward the orange nose
and tiny eyes. I
see in them a pure
self-negating compassion
and they don’t see me.
How romantic! We’d
sit by the Piscataqua
as it got dark, the
night heron would croak.
So distinct. The night deepened.
Just two old lovers,
speechless. Beyond words,
what we felt then. Today I
reread Basho texts.
Today geese jab the
winter grass with their mighty
beaks. The Absolute
God of cold is no-
where to be seen. No
snow. Let the geese
be geese, says the God of love,
from nowhere. Let them
amble, eat, converse
in low gravelly tones, just
so you let them be.