I
Again the larkspur,
Heavenly blue in my garden.
They, at least, unchanged.

II
How have I hurt you?
You look at me with pale eyes,
But these are my tears.

III
Morning and evening--
Yet for us once long ago
Was no division.

IV
I hear many words.
Set an hour when I may come
Or remain silent.

V
In the ghostly dawn
I write new words for your ears--
Even now you sleep.

VI
This then is morning.
Have you no comfort for me
Cold-colored flowers?

VII
My eyes are weary
Following you everywhere.
Short, oh short, the days!

VIII
When the flower falls
The leaf is no more cherished.
Every day I fear.

IX
Even when you smile
Sorrow is behind your eyes.
Pity me, therefore.

X
Laugh--it is nothing.
To others you may seem gay,
I watch with grieved eyes.

XI
Take it, this white rose.
Stems of roses do not bleed;
Your fingers are safe.

XII
As a river-wind
Hurling clouds at a bright moon,
So am I to you.

XIII
Watching the iris,
The faint and fragile petals--
How am I worthy?

XIV
Down a red river
I drift in a broken skiff.
Are you then so brave?

XV
Night lies beside me
Chaste and cold as a sharp sword.
It and I alone.

XVI
Last night it rained.
Now, in the desolate dawn,
Crying of blue jays.

XVII
Foolish so to grieve,
Autumn has its colored leaves--
But before they turn?

XVIII
Afterwards I think:
Poppies bloom when it thunders.
Is this not enough?

XIX
Love is a game--yes?
I think it is a drowning:
Black willows and stars.

**
When the aster fades
The creeper flaunts in crimson.
Always another!

XXI
Turning from the page,
Blind with a night of labor,
I hear morning crows.

XXII
A cloud of lilies,
Or else you walk before me.
Who could see clearly?

XXIII
Sweet smell of wet flowers
Over an evening garden.
Your portrait, perhaps?

XXIV
Staying in my room,
I thought of the new Spring leaves.
That day was happy.

(Handbook for Quarreling Lovers)I THOUGHT of offering you apothegms.
I might have said, "Dogs bark and the wind carries it away."
I might have said, "He who would make a door of gold must knock a nail in every day."
So easy, so easy it would have been to inaugurate a high impetuous moment for you to look on before the final farewells were spoken.
You who assumed the farewells in the manner of people buying newspapers and reading the headlines-and all peddlers of gossip who buttonhole each other and wag their heads saying, "Yes, I heard all about it last Wednesday."
  
I considered several apothegms.
"There is no love but service," of course, would only initiate a quarrel over who has served and how and when.
"Love stands against fire and flood and much bitterness," would only initiate a second misunderstanding, and bickerings with lapses of silence.
What is there in the Bible to cover our case, or Shakespere? What poetry can help? Is there any left but Epictetus?
  
Since you have already chosen to interpret silence for language and silence for despair and silence for contempt and silence for all things but love,
Since you have already chosen to read ashes where God knows there was something else than ashes,
Since silence and ashes are two identical findings for your eyes and there are no apothegms worth handing out like a hung jury's verdict for a record in our own hearts as well as the community at large,
I can only remember a Russian peasant who told me his grandfather warned him: If you ride too good a horse you will not take the straight road to town.
  
It will always come back to me in the blur of that hokku: The heart of a woman of thirty is like the red ball of the sun seen through a mist.
Or I will remember the witchery in the eyes of a girl at a barn dance one winter night in Illinois saying: Put off the wedding five times and nobody comes to it.

Bruised sky God swore loud
Resolute as tears tulips
Out of fury grew

sundogs past the vale --
late Spring's changing wind atop
the same, sturdy tent


bald mountain rains--
the worms retreat
with every step



'

sunset river-bat~
i stand deaf on the loud shore,
with star and crescent moon


'

Spring-summer fronts ~
tornado siren, trains;
owls on the edge


the French Broad's roar
doesn't drown the bass across--
campsites decay

pristine pristineness~
comparing filth with (to less) filth,
unnatural taste

'
individual--
tree, then mycelial port,
ants, woodpecker feast.
earth, life, openness;
a walking-staff's thud.

~


water's tone
over three leaves~
a steady stream



~

mountain spring of Spring--
a higher note is struck
in flowing free

shady water source--
salamander audience
of fullness' ease

mountain nooks in bloom--
univied cradles pause,
contact deeper breath

~

almost summer--
a level ridge
stretches our backs

~
growls in the Spring dark--
a large rodent returns home
to unwelcome guests.



Spring lushness--
mountain sunrays glide north
as we climb




woodpecker echoes ~
the empty forest vibrates
my growing hunger


~