To a Friend from Kampa
I knew him.
A bit of an oddball,
now and then a wanderer from the rowan hills,
a healer of lepers in black India.
He clung to the rescue lines
on the left flank of lunar airships.
He took his name from his beloved.
Writing
Selected verse
A few poems to give a sense of the author’s voice.
Sunflowers from Your Palms
Perhaps I will lose myself
in your fragrances.
I would like to repeat it
at least a hundred times over.
Like sunflowers
with yellow swords.
Perhaps a Mitigating Circumstance
Why should I not admit it. I am harshly trained;
poems now and then grow pale,
turning to ice and to a windowsill,
and the birds slide down.
They sing, Let us knead from clay,
the herons — ashen, white and red.
With a breath of fragrance, the girls’ laps
take nothing of what is left of them.
Then they quarrel in riddles;
they tumble down the hillsides, sleep in mountain huts.
Along the way, oh God, they take no hostages.
From afar they catch the scent of charred temples, a heavy reek;
in nets and in midnight prayers,
I cannot do otherwise — barefoot I step across the shadows.
Prayer Before Three in the Morning, or Escaping Words
Even if you did not exist,
be here a while;
I will tell no one.
She,
whom I loved
and led in secret into the woods
and licked the sweat from her belly,
is no more.
We sat through the whole night,
believing in the winter aconites beneath the snow
and at daybreak…
You will never guess.
At daybreak we could, and were allowed,
once more again.
Even if you did not exist,
it was a beautiful fight;
the confessors slept
and you did not wake them.
You would not have turned them against us anyway.
Even if you did not exist,
be here a while,
I will tell no one.