The Moths

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1. Beyond Siberia Again Siberia Beyond Siberia again Siberia, Beyond impenetrable forest again forest. And beyond it waste ground, Where a blizzard of snow breaks loose. The blizzard has handcuffs, and the snow- Storm has a knife which kills at once…. I will die, pay a debt For others who live somewhere, Out of spite, out of fear and terror, […]...
2. Clearing at Dawn The fields are chill, the sparse rain has stopped; The colours of Spring teem on every side. With leaping fish the blue pond is full; With singing thrushes the green boughs droop. The flowers of the field have dabbled their powdered cheeks; The mountain grasses are bent level at the waist. By the bamboo stream […]...
3. Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing The light along the hills in the morning Comes down slowly, naming the trees White, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate. Notice what this poem is not doing. A house, a house, a barn, the old Quarry, where the river shrugs How much of this place is yours? Notice what this poem is […]...
4. HOLY WEEK AT GENOA I wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat, The oranges on each o’erhanging spray Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day; Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay: And the curved waves that streaked the great green […]...
5. The Frost-King – Song II Brighter shone the golden shadows; On the cool wind softly came The low, sweet tones of happy flowers, Singing little Violet’s name. ‘Mong the green trees was it whispered, And the bright waves bore it on To the lonely forest flowers, Where the glad news had not gone. Thus the Frost-King lost his kingdom, And […]...
6. The Lark And I have seen, At dawn, The lark Spin out of the long grass And into the pink air – Its wings, Which are neither wide Nor overstrong, Fluttering – The pectorals Ploughing and flashing For nothing but altitude – And the song Bursting All the while From the red throat. And then he descends, […]...
7. Lullaby Now the day is done, Now the shepherd sun Drives his white flocks from the sky; Now the flowers rest On their mother’s breast, Hushed by her low lullaby. Now the glowworms glance, Now the fireflies dance, Under fern-boughs green and high; And the western breeze To the forest trees Chants a tuneful lullaby. Now […]...
8. Peonies This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready To break my heart As the sun rises, As the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers And they open – Pools of lace, White and pink – And all day the black ants climb over them, Boring their deep and mysterious holes […]...
9. Morning Poem #40 pink around a Circle of pink Around a shimmer Of found reason Pink around a Glimmering white Shaked around A sound blue Somehow in the Touch of green Looped inside Loops abound A bound ribbon A hope bow bows In a rare season...
10. A Meeting She steps into the dark swamp Where the long wait ends. The secret slippery package Drops to the weeds. She leans her long neck and tongues it Between breaths slack with exhaustion And after a while it rises and becomes a creature Like her, but much smaller. So now there are two. And they walk […]...
11. Turtle Now I see it It nudges with its bulldog head The slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble; And now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal Who is leading her soft children From one side of the pond to the other; she keeps Close to the edge And they […]...
12. Crimson Changes People DID I see a crucifix in your eyes And nails and Roman soldiers And a dusk Golgotha? Did I see Mary, the changed woman, Washing the feet of all men, Clean as new grass When the old grass burns? Did I see moths in your eyes, lost moths, With a flutter of wings that meant: […]...
13. Swan Song A bunch of old snakeheads down by the pond Carrying on the swan tradition hissing Inside their white bodies, raising and lowering their heads Like ostriches, regretting only the sad ritual That forced them to waddle back into the water After their life under the rocks, wishing they could lie again in the sun And […]...
14. Chemin De Fer Alone on the railroad track I walked with pounding heart. The ties were too close together or maybe too far apart. The scenery was impoverished: scrub-pine and oak; beyond Its mingled gray-green foliage I saw the little pond Where the dirty old hermit lives, lie like an old tear Holding onto its injuries lucidly year […]...
15. Where? My snowy eupatorium has dropped Its silver threads of petals in the night; No signal told its blossoming had stopped; Its seed-films flutter silent, ghostly white: No answer stirs the shining air, As I ask, “Where?” Beneath the glossy leaves of winter-green Dead lilly-bells lie low, and in their place A rounded disk of pearly […]...
16. The old pond Following are several translations Of the ‘Old Pond’ poem, which may be The most famous of all haiku: Furuike ya Kawazu tobikomu Mizu no oto Basho Literal Translation Fu-ru (old) i-ke (pond) ya, Ka-wa-zu (frog) to-bi-ko-mu (jumping into) Mi-zu (water) no o-to (sound) The old pond A frog jumps in, sound of water. Translated by […]...
17. Clapp's Pond Three miles through the woods Clapp’s Pond sprawls stone gray Among oaks and pines, The late winter fields Where a pheasant blazes up Lifting his yellow legs Under bronze feathers, opening Bronze wings; And one doe, dimpling the ground as she touches Its dampness sharply, flares Out of the brush and gallops away. * By […]...
18. Moccasin Flowers All my life, So far, I have loved More than one thing, Including the mossy hooves Of dreams, including’ The spongy litter Under the tall trees. In spring The moccasin flowers Reach for the crackling Lick of the sun And burn down. Sometimes, In the shadows, I see the hazy eyes, The lamb-lips Of oblivion, […]...
19. The Banyan Tree O you shaggy-headed banyan tree standing on the bank of the pond, Have you forgotten the little chile, like the birds that have Nested in your branches and left you? Do you not remember how he sat at the window and wondered at The tangle of your roots and plunged underground? The women would come […]...
20. The Solitary Huntsman The solitary huntsman No coat of pink doth wear, But midnight black from cap to spur Upon his midnight mare. He drones a tuneless jingle In lieu of tally-ho: “I’ll catch a fox And put him in a box And never let him go.” The solitary huntsman, He follows silent hounds. No horn proclaims his […]...
21. A man toiled on a burning road A man toiled on a burning road, Never resting. Once he saw a fat, stupid ass Grinning at him from a green place. The man cried out in rage, “Ah! Do not deride me, fool! I know you All day stuffing your belly, Burying your heart In grass and tender sprouts: It will not suffice […]...
22. Aunt Leaf Needing one, I invented her – The great-great-aunt dark as hickory Called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud Or The-Beauty-of-the-Night. Dear aunt, I’d call into the leaves, And she’d rise up, like an old log in a pool, And whisper in a language only the two of us knew The word that meant follow, And we’d travel Cheerful […]...
23. An April Day When the warm sun, that brings Seed-time and harvest, has returned again, ‘T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs The first flower of the plain. I love the season well, When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell The coming-on of storms. From the earth’s loosened […]...
24. Lover's Gifts XIX: It Is Written in the Book It is written in the book that Man, when fifty, must leave the Noisy world, to go to the forest seclusion. But the poet proclaims That the forest hermitage is only for the young. For it is the Birthplace of flowers and the haunt of birds and bees; and hidden Hooks are waiting there for […]...
25. Twelve O'Clock Mother, I do want to leave off my lessons now. I have been at my Book all the morning. You say it is only twelve o’clock. Suppose it isn’t any later; Can’t you ever think it is afternoon when it is only twelve O’clock? I can easily imagine now that the sun has reached the […]...
26. Beautiful Monikie Beautiful Monikie! with your trees and shrubberies green And your beautiful walks, most charming to be seen: ‘Tis a beautiful place for pleasure-seekers to resort, Because there they can have innocent sport, Taking a leisure walk all round about, And see the ang1ers fishing in the pand for trout. Besides, there’s lovely white swans swimming […]...
27. Atavism I was always afraid of Somes’s Pond: Not the little pond, by which the willow stands, Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond. There, where the frost makes all the birches burn Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines Like a polished shell between black […]...
28. On why it is necessary to talk kindly to frogs i met a frog in my garden today Lurking under a stone – it said There used to be a pond here I know i said i had to dig it up Pity said the frog and looked at me As if i was the thickest mortal A garden without water it croaked Is worse […]...
29. On A Cape May Warbler Who Flew Against My Window She’s stopped in her southern tracks Brought haply to this hard knock When she shoots from the tall spruce And snaps her neck on the glass. From the fall grass I gather her And give her to my silent children Who give her a decent burial Under the dogwood in the garden. They lay their […]...
30. The watchers against their beliefs a blue spot came slowly Out of the green Nobody expected such a thing to occur On a thursday The watchers switched over from their electronic Eye to their notes The evidence undeniably placed thursday as the day Of the pink circle They recorded having seen another pink circle In a strange […]...
31. The Addict Sleepmonger, Deathmonger, With capsules in my palms each night, Eight at a time from sweet pharmaceutical bottles I make arrangements for a pint-sized journey. I’m the queen of this condition. I’m an expert on making the trip And now they say I’m an addict. Now they ask why. WHY! Don’t they know that I promised […]...
32. The Harbor PASSING through huddled and ugly walls By doorways where women Looked from their hunger-deep eyes, Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands, Out from the huddled and ugly walls, I came sudden, at the city’s edge, On a blue burst of lake, Long lake waves breaking under the sun On a spray-flung curve of shore; And a […]...
33. Flare 1. Welcome to the silly, comforting poem. It is not the sunrise, Which is a red rinse, Which is flaring all over the eastern sky; It is not the rain falling out of the purse of God; It is not the blue helmet of the sky afterward, Or the trees, or the beetle burrowing into […]...
34. Shirt I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering shirt of you in the wind. Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the stuff. And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the singing voice of […]...
35. Bat His awful skin Stretched out by some tradesman Is like my skin, here between my fingers, A kind of webbing, a kind of frog. Surely when first born my face was this tiny And before I was born surely I could fly. Not well, mind you, only a veil of skin From my arms to […]...
36. Heaven Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat’ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, […]...
37. Afterwards When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say, “He was a man who used to notice such things”? If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes […]...
38. A Baby Running Barefoot When the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass The little white feet nod like white flowers in the wind, They poise and run like ripples lapping across the water; And the sight of their white play among the grass Is like a little robin’s song, winsome, Or as two white butterflies settle […]...
39. The Flower-School When storm-clouds rumble in the sky and June showers come down. The moist east wind comes marching over the heath to blow its Bagpipes among the bamboos. Then crowds of flowers come out of a sudden, from nobody knows Where, and dance upon the grass in wild glee. Mother, I really think the flowers go […]...
40. The trees in the garden rained flowers The trees in the garden rained flowers. Children ran there joyously. They gathered the flowers Each to himself. Now there were some Who gathered great heaps Having opportunity and skill Until, behold, only chance blossoms Remained for the feeble. Then a little spindling tutor Ran importantly to the father, crying: “Pray, come hither! See this […]...