Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Moonset \ Ryokan On The Grand Tour


Nancy: The sun is life, but the moon is dreams.  The moon is female; the sun is sharp but the moon – this moon – is gentle, this moon wrapped in a diaphanous shawl.



Moonset


clock and calendar
apogee, perigee
wax and wane

This morning the moon sets
one spruce to the south.
Sets into a thin scrim of cloud.
Floods the room with light.

last fullmoon of winter
first fullmoon of spring

Even as I watch, light
washing my face, the moon
slips to the south
into the spruce.

leaves me reaching
leaning
toward the sky
the invisible moon
in the sky



Alan:  What would a quiet monk from a remote rural province on the Sea of Japan have made of the decadent glories of contemporary Venice?  Would he be reminded, unexpectedly, of home?



Ryokan On The Grand Tour


At Murano he watches
bright tiny fish swim from glass rods
into crystal seas.
St. Mark’s gold cave all sainted dazzle,
piazza iridescent with pigeons.
Everything millefiori, clattering the eyeballs,
nothing like cool Echigo.
Viewing the Canalettos, their milky aqua skies,
he suddenly longs for Niigata Bay, its pale-green
ice at dawn.

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