by Richard Luftig
The Four Kinds of Writing Paper
(From the Chinese)
Wild Geese
Swallows, willows, sparrows, spruce. Wild geese scattered among white pine. Flying and migratory, like children coming home to visit aging parents. Transitory guests in the house.
Blue Cloud
Wisteria in clear wind. A sky speckled in sunlight. It is the clouds' turn to talk. The moon stands respectfully waiting to search sleeping stars for its genealogy.
Cicada Wing
Who would have guessed seventeen years the time to be reborn? Old age now measured in days. Death arriving in a month. Better to never see offspring than to watch them grow old alone.
Six Times Lucky
How lucky and difficult to complete anything in life. Still, gardens move to the edge of hayfields, solitary bees bustle among flowers searching for their communion.
Ten-Thousand
The Chinese believed ten-thousand things make up the world but combined in all their different ways create the universe.
From my window, I watch a world turn yellow- to- brown around huddling finches and create a universe of reasons why you still may come back. |