I sit with my cup in the shade of a room.
Curtains part on variations in green—
camellia, hinoki, abelia—and the new
bright red spot I know is a bloom.
The moments open by blink, by breath,
by thought, all in a soft shadow of cloud.
Quiet, but for the groan of a plane,
or is it the mindless humming of death?
Quiet, yes, but the interstate whines
from a mile west. I know—hearts race
like whipped horses, a people harnessed
and driven, leapt from their minds.
The branches, still, but the air breathes
tremors into those waxy-sheened leaves,
into the cypress’s needle hands...so
I see, how the present seethes
every instant, which again is enough
to raise the rough business of ends—
my body’s, my people’s.... It’s gusting
and this ripple, no one, I, lift my cup
toward the sill, and note the fine tremble
as an odd blessing spills from my lips...
To the edge! Yes—to the invisible
threshold where flowers tear and tumble
free, car radios crossing the bridge
cease their decrees, chiefs’ and ministers’
throats fall silent as the moon’s beams,
the fiercest believers careen off the ledge
of our age.... Me? Already a torn petal.
Ahead of my time? No—I shake
like my roots did in the railbed gravel
under the transports’ roaring metal.