Three Haiku Poems Written Near the Sea

i.

The white gull rises,
Dips her wing in orange light.
The sky's her canvas

ii.

On her cloud arbor
The moon ripens heavily,
Low enough to pluck.

iii.

A hovering gull
Poised between mountain and sea:
Effortless balance

21. March. 2000.  [back]

Setting Lamps Afloat, 4 Poems.

I.

The sun is barely above the horizon.
The motionless wind, not yet awakened.
Drinking green tea I'm stretched
Barefoot across my chaise on the lawn.
Half of the morning and half of my life
I've pondered things of no consequence.
Suddenly, above me, a hawk calls.
The silence is rent by her harsh cries.
Looking up I see the flash
Of a red tail in the blue gaps.
Her voice rasps into the distance.
I'm curious to learn what startled her,
But not enough to leave my chair.
I've spent my youth learning in vain.

10. October. 1999

II.

Parched grasses drowsy in the morning heat;
A veil of dust drapes the eastern horizon-
I've come alone to inspect the drought damage,
Lamenting the bronze of my once green field.
Near the perimeter, above the insect drone,
Hidden behind the gray, leathery leaves,
I hear the chatter of nestlings from the undergrowth.
While other creatures claw the hard scrabble
And strip the root crowns bare of bark
Desperate for a drop of dew or sap,
These heretic sparrows sing like cheerful rain.
I think of all the dry, withering days
Of loss and bereavement my heart has endured.
A seeker is certain to find the springs of renewal
Bubbling up from unexpected places.

20. October. 1999

III.

Full of the evening's leisure,
Surrounded by cricket song,
I walk at first twilight,
Following the path by the river.
The day-end chores of home
Are guiltily left behind me.
For now, forgetting the duties
That tug at my conscience, I stop.
Waiting for the moon
To dip her golden cup
Into shimmering water.

26. October. 1999

IV.

The plum colored leaves
Are clinging to the Blackhaw,
As autumn still clings to the vine.
Beneath a bronze sky
All my thoughts are heavy,
And the sky clings to its metal.
I have an itch to travel,
To leave home and possessions,
And flee the north wind.
But rooted here for ages,
A brother to the Blackhaw,
I choose instead to stay
And cling to a scrap of land.
For what is all this clinging?
Life is a smooth stone
That slips between the fingers
To sink into a dark well.

13. November. 1999.  [back]

Forty-two years,
Adrift on the floating world,
Two waters were your life.
One, the river of service;
(You counted ten trips up
And ten trips down the Huai).
It led you soon to exile.
But there was another river,
A river of poetry and wine.
In this you lulled your soul.
Coaxing a crop of rice
From meager, leased fields,
Relying on the mercy
Of neighbors in the cold
Months on eastern slope,
A man grows old and weary.
Each day's spending limit
Was divided into bags
And hung from wooden pegs.
The savings were hoarded for wine
To serve the winter guests.
Estranged from family and friends
For poetical ideals,
You displeased your emperor
And paid a heavy price.
You tell us none believed
You would have been a herdsman
And happy all your days.
Yours was more a kinship
With dew on plum blossoms.
You were never meant
To be a bureaucrat.

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These weathered planks have held for years
Among decayed and tumbled piers,
Against the wake, the tidal sway,
And surging storms that bring the bay
And sea together, locking hands
To dunk the island's head. It stands
Triumphant in the blistering sun.
Against all odds the pier has won
In Townsend's inlet

I found my sea legs near these slips,
And tasted salt mist on my lips
Amid the sounds of wood hulls slapped,
White sails whipped, and bright flags snapped.
Sheltered in my father's shade,
I scraped the bait with rusted blade
Sending thumb-size chips of ice
Across the pier like tumbled dice.
In Townsend's Inlet

I marveled at the way he hooked
The squid secure, and how it looked
Irresistible as bait.
But then we'd cast, and wait…and wait
For hours sometimes, while our poles
Both arcing downward sent out scrolls
Of bright concentric circles from
Our lines as they began to thrum
In Townsend's Inlet.

The boredom gave us words to say
And broke the silence of the bay.
What if we'd said it all before
A hundred times, maybe more?
This was where I really had
All of him. So I was glad
To talk of things we soon forgot
And learn to tie a barrel knot
In Townsend's Inlet.

3. August. 1994 - 3. March. 2002

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Greek Fisherman

The old fisherman naps,
Dreaming of the sirocco
And taut rigging
In his gnarled hands.

In his reverie,
Olive skinned girls wave
As the long boats
Spill their catch on the wharf.
Then dark ale surges
And billows like sea foam
Over the rims of tall steins.
Home from their odyssey,
The Greek heroes laugh
And shout with booming sea voices,
Slapping the bottoms
Of young Aphrodites,
Curvaceous and firm
Like the prows of their boats.

But now he sleeps like Pompeii
In the pale Mediterranean light
While the dusk, like Vesuvian ash,
Settles down upon him.
A rattle outside the door
Doesn't awaken him -
Only his woman
Returning from market
With hard bread and canned sardines.

6. June. 2001

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Stature

These oaks and maples towering tall
Have changed in stature, if at all,
A relatively small degree
Between the infinite and me.

To a young undaunted eye
They never tossed their crowns too high.
I didn't need a gentle slope,
A parachute, a bail of rope

To nestle safely in some crook
And ride a limb wind-shook.
I've gone to greater lengths since then,
But I'm too old for heights again.

I'll only gaze up greens and grays,
Lamenting lost sure-footed days,
Recalling when, by heaven's span,
The child saw farther than the man.

7. August. 1994 - 12 May. 2006

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Blooming

This gray December day we sing to your ashes.
The bare knuckled trees like mourner's hands
Shed snow petals under the shivering sky.
Once your slender fingers folded like sepals,

A calyx around the inlaid rose on the neck
Of that guitar you always played; and the songs
Flowered miraculous from that lifeless wood.
And now we've come to sing them back to you

And draw breath between our lips in unison,
And taste the notes like bright rosettes
Of flame on our tongues. Even the lilies beside
The Altar know the time is wrong for blooming.

26. December, 2000

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