was about to come into being,
when, x, a calico cat scratches at the door.
5
When you stoop to examine a lichen but find
alongside, barely exposed, several gold chanterelles,
I bend to earth in my mind: observe striations
along a white cap, absence of annulus, dig,
unearth a volva. We go on in the woods
and stumble into a cluster of teeth fungi
with dark upturned scales on their caps.
Who notices in the early morning Saturn slip
behind a waning gibbous moon? This year,
a creation spiral slowly incandesces in my hand.
I slip a white elastic band off and loosen
your hair, rub my thumb in your palm. I love
when wet sunlight splashes your face, recall
grilling shrimp near a corner of the screened porch
while rain slants across the field. In the few
weeks of a year when bloodred amanitas push
out of the earth, we push into a splendor of
yellow plumeria, orange hibiscus, bird-of-paradise.
6
Pears ripen in a lacquer bowl on the butcher-
block table. A red shimmer arcs across
the northwest sky as a galaxy bends the light
of a quasar. Yellow ranunculus unfold in a glass vase
while fireflies blink in a corner of the yard.
A physicist employs lasers and slows atoms
down to approach absolute zero; a calligrapher
draws the silk radical twice, then mountain,
to form “the most shady recesses in the hills.”
As the ink dries, she lights two red candles
in the bedroom, notices near the curtains
taro in the huge tin tub, and spots a curling leaf.
He hears the gasp when he first unzipped
her jeans, knows the small o is a lotus seed
slowly germinating in his mind, but the
brevity of equation makes him quiver and ache.
When they turn to each other in a wet kiss,
their fingertips glow in the skin of their days.
FROM The Willow Wind
1972
Noah’s / Dove
The moon is black.
Had I a bird
it would fly,
beat the air into land.
To remain
or trust
the silver leaves of the sea?
What if
I say what is:
no bird, no land.
The sea tossing
its damp wet fish
on the bow,
their lungs exhaling
the sea, taking in
moon air
for the first time …
The Wood Whittler
Whales and fish
sailing
in the sky!
Old saws! Old saws!
Red flakes
falling off the wood
like leaves.
Fire?
The woodcutter
pares the skin
with a
knowing hand.
The blade—rude—
will carve
his / mind’s mastery
in the /
witless earth.
Li Po
Jarred.
The oars creaked in their locks.
Fish beneath the moon.
Cradled his pen
filled with wine.
A goddess stirred,
rocked the cradle of his boat,
let the silent fish know
a dreamer’s silver hands were at work.
Pegasus on a Pipe
He would ride the moon,
prod the slow seahorse with a cake of salt
and when it broke sweat,
urge it ease,
watch
