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for Carol
for Micah and Sarah
Contents
Title Page
6 Compass Rose Arctic Circle Fault Lines Glimmer Train Orchid Hour The Curtain 2’33” Comet Hyakutake Morning Antlers Compass Rose Red Breath
7 In relief
8 Available Light
9 The Infinity Pool
10 Strike-Slip
11 She wrings
12 The Immediacy of Heat
13 At the Equinox
14 Returning to Northern New Mexico after a Trip to Asia
15 Qiviut
16 Backlit
17 An aura reader
18 Confetti
19 Spectral Hues
20 Windows and Mirrors
21 Midnight Loon
22 Point-Blank
23 The Radius of Touch
24 A cobra rises
25 The Unfolding Center
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author
Books by Arthur Sze
Copyright
Special Thanks
Black kites with outstretched wings circle overhead —
After a New Moon
Each evening you gaze in the southwest sky
as a crescent extends in argentine light.
When the moon was new, your mind was
desireless, but now both wax to the world.
While your neighbor’s field is cleared,
your corner plot is strewn with desiccated
sunflower stalks. You scrutinize the bare
apricot limbs that have never set fruit,
the wisteria that has never blossomed,
and wince, hearing how, at New Year’s,
teens bashed in a door and clubbed strangers.
Near a pond, someone kicks a dog out
of a pickup. Each second, a river edged
with ice shifts course. Last summer’s
exposed tractor tire is nearly buried
under silt. An owl lifts from a poplar,
while the moon, no, the human mind
moves from brightest bright to darkest dark.
Sticking out of yellow-tongued flames on a ghat, a left foot —
Near a stopped bus, one kid performs acrobatics while another drums —
The Curvature of Earth
Red
