IX

Oh this gradual coming together as sleep lifts away from bodies resting just apart but then a little turn on the pillow knees touch there is the slightest kiss of a nose a mingling of feet hands may rest atop a thigh and touch experimentally This is such bliss all consuming no thought but each body’s press and caress so slightly so gently given until hands and limbs and kisses and the dearest stroking fills us to the brim with that longing which only the deeper kiss can quench Afterwards we watch from our attic bedroom leaves departing their trees

X

The steep steps and Doric pillars eight in all gather us into an entranced gloom only to spill us out into the light and space of galleries filled with Cyprian artefacts an owl with a removable head more porcelain than even your great aunt could look at but in a corner there were these bowls from Syria 12C and earlier Michael Cardew could have thrown and patterned but didn’t One in Iranian green inscribed thus blessing prosperity glory grace joy happiness security and long life to the owner  nothing more surely ever to be wished for ever to be wanted

XI

My Chinese heroine has a soulmate: Jilia’s deer in flight across a page of Somerset Soft White and Tengin mould oh the verse of Hafiz 14C Sufi mystic flowing into the body of this running beast Rejoice you lonely seeker of the scented path out of the wilderness the perfumed deer has come and there was more in different hands paper parchment poems exquisitely rendered into living words In a frame Goethe’s leaves of the Gingo Biloba stuck to his letter of love to married Marianne This leaf from a tree in the East has been given to my garden

XII

Captivating in beauty glowing silvery-white petals flutter down to lay a blanket of snow beneath the flowering trees and miraculously they did and more to make us wonder that negative space could be so powerfully wrought Hiroshige the master in his element of the winter snows eloquent landscapes figures on the Edo to Kyoto road the detail of raised up clogs and warm layered garments of a Geisha walking out with her maid the stone blue waters the pale reflecting skies the delicate embossing of waves and the flow of hillsides the ukiyo-e woodblock prints pictures of the floating world

XIII

Wearing purple and red your near to Advent colours grace this table we lunch at before a final walk through the city full of our time here amongst the towers and chapels and more history and art than we can manage for the time being Again and always whelmed over by your beauty seen against the press and clutter the clustering in the peopled streets the bicycled roads and in this one o’clock restaurant’s clamour how is it that my eyes are wholly on you my ears only hearing your sweet voice my fingers reaching out to touch you again?

Mother Nature has a way of helping all of her beautiful creatures
She offers chamomile for when your mind is keeping you from sleeping
Passion flower for your constant worries and woes
Coffee to keep your eyes open
Ginko biloba for when you fail to remember
St John’s Wort for the melancholy that you can’t shake
Lavender for your head’s physical pains
Ginger for those cramps that seem paralyzing
Feverfew to relieve you when you’re overheated
Cannabis to escape all that troubles you
Mint for your when your stomach upsets you

Mother Nature’s healing powers should never be overlooked
She will tend to your wounds
Internal or external
Because Mother Nature cares for you
And you should care for her too

Most mornings are not clear.
Most mornings are not the type with a
ten-state view from the top of
Clingman's Dome, and two very expensive
tanks of gasoline. You're welcome.

No, most mornings are battered
by some kind of weather condition -
rains and drizzles and nebulous fogs,
unhappy bedmates, a productive cough -
or else the sun just remits,
stays dozing until it has slept enough.

Then you get that gray sky-
chalkboard, the punitive slap of
humid cold on your early walks, your
coffee rendezvous. Then you have
too many garments at 3 because you put
on extra at 8. Morning, in short,
wishes you ill.

Be aware that if you were born
this century, you lurched into no
midwife's hands, full of love and wet, but
a surgeon's, gloved and powdery,
who spanked you firmly, knocked you
down with a commanding stare, and gave you
the first of many cuts you were to receive.

But for having woken up, let's say,
on the wrong side of the bed (if
even there's a right one), I would
like to think we've done alright,
are not too warm or upset at midday,
not too disappointed in ourselves, our moments
of astounding social gracelessness
that we leave like bits of sneaker in our wake.

Still, though, a question:
where grows happiness? Where sprouts
the silver trunk, the cypress or birch? Or
ficus or orange or ginkgo biloba? Tell me.
I would tap that tree 'til it withers, and die
under its trunk, and the two very expensive
tanks of gasoline it took
to get me where I am.

Beijing’s Child points at the white clouds flying, veils in the somber sky, to the moon under the yielding tree’s red lantern, he is absent-mindedly playing with his brown braids. He pictures himself abroad, by other long shores turning the pages of his dear illustrated book when a fired fish jumps up to the skies clad in its rainbow scales, glistering. Under the yielding tree red lantern

Beijing’s Child rubs the green ginkgo Although the snow, winter’s daughter plucks the feather leaves of her silvery coat....
Was it the wind, messenger of the west that brought the Biloba bird until Ta? Under the yielding tree red lantern

He thinks about it sprouting, seed of the past. The Child whose name means pagoda lives over the gates of the shining sun chanting to the elements songs and lullabies,
Under the yielding tree red lantern.

And when Earth vibrates under the storms when the frightened men rise their damped eyes the child wraps his body with the veil of the stars I hear by the mounts his voice and his augurs. But the tree was cut down and cannot offer its sweet sap anymore the red gleam has faded long ago of the marooned torn by time book only one thing remains, and it is a dream.

Because, at bedtime, as the world is sound asleep the child pours a golden powder to the souls. Stay awake at night because the Child of Beijing will enchant you until your morning!

Written in French in Beijing, October 20, 2011. Translated on May 9, 2014 Lyon, France

We left behind the growing oaks, the contorted willow
with its weeping friend, and the chestnut which
protects us from the western wind.

The christmas tree, garden plonked some thirty years ago,
soon to chop and chimney, and its holly neighbour,
freed at last from greedy strangling ivy.

The white-barked birch, the leaning cluster pine, the maturing
walnut and arching alders, the trio of young scots pines,
rescued from loop moth caterpillars just in time.

The regiment of leylandii along the northern border all in a line
the laurel hedge, the little holm oak, the redwood brought
home in luggage as a burl now spearing to the sky.

The shy biloba, new, unsure, not yet deciding if it dare.
The host of yellow plums, which bid to sucker  
everywhere.

The rowan in a ***, bark nibbled by a bunnie, still waiting
for a plot.  

The scruffy greengage, planted for its scrumptious fare,
the bramley sapling and the conference pear plucked
from the bargain bin last year.

We left them all behind, just for a night, with
a special mission on our minds. We
traveled south then west to a band
of dedicated people in a special
place we had to find.
He was there.

He's with us now, and quite relaxed.
We're on our way to take him back,
to live with us as a life-long friend,
and make our lives
complete again.

the scalloped skirts
of the biloba ballerinas
are furling while green
still paints the stems
of the stubborn soloists.

the maidenhair corps de ballet
flies from the wings
tutus golden to match the winter light.
curtains open on the new season.
the sidewalk audience stands

in ovation
and continues home.

bp bp bp bp
footsteps nearing me
why do i get nervous
bp bp bp bp
wait
i’m alone
my heartbeat again
bp bp bp bp bp bp bp

i haven’t been sleeping
but i sleep good when i do
lots of dreams lately
but they’re all too realistic

i’ve been daydreaming about vietnam:
i’m following this lady
who sells bananas on a bike
she’s leading me through the bazaar
to find man who sells spice
spice man just cracked a watermelon
the juice running down his hands
the aroma strong, clean
i can’t speak vietnamese
but i wonder how much he’d haggle
on a wedge

this morning on my cold walk
air blew back my rusty hair
i was purposeful tardy
but i was happy
i saw the browned ginkgo biloba leaves
limp by my feet
-they’re lucky you know, the ginkgo leaves
and i wondered if banana woman had ever seen ginkgo

I heard you whispering through the empty door-frame
Seeking sleep from your desired lover, unchanged and the same
the twilight years of life, are they anything like the twilight zone?
Perhaps the alzheimers leads to a quantum close
and
mirrors float like seperated identities, I let the spirit into me
Sentient flow comes with a pill of Gingko biloba
The oval Mandala SWEEPS me up!
Back in the circle of the SANSKIRT gumption
Carved like a pumpkin, that's sumthin if you're thumpin
Loud
Loud
Loud enough.

Quite an undertaking
to break ground
figuratively, and symbolically linkedin
while able bodied and mindedness
readies cemetery plot within Elysian Fields
although honestly, and truthfully
as an ***** donor,
yours truly opts for cremation
once I, the corporeal constituent essence
that constitutes breadth,
height, length, et cetera
of one garden variety generic guy,
whose introspective consciousness
once exits these lovely bones
subsequently shucks off his ethereal soul.

Probable cause of death
and reasonable rhyme
how he died with his boots on?

Accidental overdose spelt demise of Vitamin ******
with over the counter supplements he did monkey.

Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies
Biotin 10,000 mcg
Brain Support Gummies
Super B Complex with Vitamin C
Calcium 1200 MG plus Vitamin D3
Chewable Vitamin C dietary supplement
Daily De-Stress
Vitamin E 400 IU (180 mg)
Echinacea 400 mg
Fiber Gummies
Flaxseed Oil with OMEGA-3 1300 mg
Garlic 400 mg
Ginger Root 550 mg
Ginkgo Biloba 120 mg
Hair, Skin & Nails Gummies
Prebiotic Immune Support 750 mg
with Vitamin D 30 mcg 1200 IU
with Zinc 8.3 mg
Psyllium Husk
Selenium 200 mcg
Turmeric 500 mg
Vitamin A 2400 mcg

Alphabetized list of above
stockpiled synthesized materials
purchased at CVS and Walgreens
courtesy Nations Benefits
and/or United HealthCare flex card
allow, enable, and provide
careful discriminate experimentation
on self - selected as guinea pig
more tolerable versus when being a little boy
and bullied by ruthless nasty
and shortish brutes as scapegoat
of course discriminately
taking a subset of iterated
prescribed macronutrients
each including following specified dose.

A healthy corpse
when the grim reaper calls,
I will gladly bid adieu
bon voyage into the netherworld
and good riddance
to him (a good for nothing)
randy sandy donning tan hat man
Squirreling acorn née joke
hinting courtesy humorous literary arabesques
absent minded handy dandy blue's clue
imploring accomplice Jimmy Neutron,
who willingly frankly (iggy lee)
casually opened, popped, and zapped
license to **** himself softly
while listening to Pathetique adagio cantabile
by Ludwig Van Beethoven
courtesy over the counter supplements,
the Food and Drug Administration doth not eschew.

Mastermind of the universe, I
a skeptic (with flat thinning hair,
yet shrinking paunch)
regarding divine creationism,
nevertheless accepts mortality
as stepping stone
into nothingness that follows,
repurposing random arrangement
of atoms and molecules
that configured one
contemplative, intuitive, operative
and restive **** sapien
(essentially composed of stardust)
reincarnated into another form of matter.

After crafting especially
individualized invitations
répondez s'il vous plaît
as the spirit moves thee.