Poet, Dancer, Tree
for Gretchen

The poet aches just like the dancer's toe.
Who knows of that broad gnarled beech
the agonies of its growth, what blisters,
what strained heavings through dirt, towards sky?

All beauty's born of pain.  Nothing strides 
into the grace of form without labor.
And still, when words and limbs are tightly tuned,
who remarks the ground over which they glide?

“Poet, Dancer, Tree” first appeared in South Dakota Review



Found Inside a Chinese Box


Tendrils thin as new snakes 
undulate upon the inlaid table.  
No desire for sudden noise 
disturbs the Lord Shi-Yueh 
taking green tea with his friend.  

In the scarlet bedchamber 
Qing-shan turns to his wife 
and speaks of some incident 
long past.  Her gentle nodding 
is like sunlight on gold roofs.  

The family sits in the garden.  
From the railing of the foot-bridge 
the littlest child pushes pebbles 
into the shallow running brook 
while two ducks stop to watch.  

In his study underneath the 
tobacco shop of Mrs. Shang-Kiu
Hsi-Wei the calligrapher 
paints these images in his 
bumbling bird’s-foot characters.

“Found Inside a Chinese Box” first appeared in Southern Humanities Review
    


Today’s Poem


The poet strolls gravely through the garden
pretending to be almost Japanese,
capable of excising the ego
that spoils his verses as it pummels his
life.  He tries to see the peonies as
Basho might; he too wishes to say something
unexpected about the ascent of
Fujiyama, to snatch up a whole
season in just seventeen syllables.

“Today’s Poem” first appeared in Leaning House Press