From Drought, then Fire


日

How did the round sun become
Square? Its rays a single stroke?
The brush lays down a flat line,
Quickly cutting sky from earth.

目

She opens her eyes both blue
Now awake blankets cover
Her shoulders. An eye, a net,
Two eyes a crease in the net

山

To think of the hills as flesh
More easily seen than sun.
A rising peak, pocked
With dark valleys though brilliant.

珍珠

Eyes wet surface, enameled
Shine of fingertips, clouds
Of net curtains and light.
Water pearling bedraggled leaves

火

Cauterizing fire writes words
Into the sky waves of clouds
Dark gray lining billowing white
Condenses heat into rain

阳

Male fades into female.
One side of the mountain shade
One side sun hot in summer.
Dusk surrounding all, always.

A flotilla of lanterns floats out from the heart

At their center a flickering flame. The petals of the lantern

In the shape of a lotus folded from paper, bending inward,

Red like a fox’s tail caught between sunlight and shadow

Moving across the water leaving faint ripples along

Its surface – fire drifts, calling soul to soul, death to life.

The touch of a tongue whose words were lost in clamor.

Rivers flow on from elevation to the sea’s defining level.

Dark bands longing to be elsewhere they are neither earth nor sky

At their edges green laces worlds together: stone water cloud rain

Inscribed in past present future.