The Glass Constellation. Arthur Sze

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The Glass Constellation - Arthur Sze

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difficult and

      sloped terrain. A soft line of poplars

      shimmers in the disappearing light.

      At midnight, the poor move

      into the train stations of Italy,

      spread out blankets for the children,

      and pretend to the police they have tickets

      and are waiting for a train.

      The statue of Bacchus is a contrast

      with his right hand holding a shallow but

      wine-brimming cup. His left hand

      reaches easily into the cornucopia

      where grapes ripen and burst open.

      It is a vivid dream: to wake

      from the statue’s grace and life force

      to the suffering in the streets.

      But the truth is the cornucopia

      is open to all who are alive,

      who look and feel the world in

      its pristine beauty—as a dragonfly

      hovering in the sunlight over clear

      water; and who feel the world

      as a luminous world—as green plankton

      drifting at night in the sea.

      The Chance

      The blue-black mountains are etched

      with ice. I drive south in fading light.

      The lights of my car set out before

      me, and disappear before my very eyes.

      And as I approach thirty, the distances

      are shorter than I guess? The mind

      travels at the speed of light. But for

      how many people are the passions

      ironwood, ironwood that hardens and hardens?

      Take the ex-musician, insurance salesman,

      who sells himself a policy on his own life;

      or the magician who has himself locked

      in a chest and thrown into the sea,

      only to discover he is caught in his own chains.

      I want a passion that grows and grows.

      To feel, think, act, and be defined

      by your actions, thoughts, feelings.

      As in the bones of a hand in an X-ray,

      I want the clear white light to work

      against the fuzzy blurred edges of the darkness:

      even if the darkness precedes and follows

      us, we have a chance, briefly, to shine.

      The Network

      In 1861, George Hew sailed in a rowboat

      from the Pearl River, China, across

      the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco.

      He sailed alone. The photograph of him

      in a museum disappeared. But, in the mind,

      he is intense, vivid, alive. What is

      this fact but another fact in a world

      of facts, another truth in a vast network

      of truths? It is a red maple leaf

      flaming out at the end of its life,

      revealing an incredibly rich and complex

      network of branching veins. We live

      in such a network: the world is opaque,

      translucent, or, suddenly, lucid,

      vibrant. The air is alive and hums

      then. Speech is too slow to the mind.

      And the mind’s speech is so quick it breaks

      the sound barrier and shatters glass.

      Fauve

      Caw Caw, Caw Caw Caw.

      To comprehend a crow

      you must have a crow’s mind.

      To be the night rain,

      silver, on black leaves,

      you must live in the

      shine and wet. Some people

      drift in their lives:

      green-gold plankton,

      phosphorescent, in the sea.

      Others slash: a knife

      at a yellow window shade

      tears open the light.

      But to live digging deep

      is to feel the blood

      in you rage as rivers,

      is to feel love and hatred

      as fibers of a rope,

      is to catch the scent

      of a wolf, and turn wild.

      Fern, Coal, Diamond

      The intense pressure of the earth

      makes coal out of ferns, diamonds out of coal.

      The intense pressure of the earth

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