The Glass Constellation - Arthur Sze

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the table

      the fences outside disappear.

      The fields are green with their rain

      and the wind curls the stars in the cold air.

      You stand now, silent, in the window of light

      and the milk you pour is glazed.

      The strawberries in the wooden bowls

      are half-covered with curdled milk.

      The Olive Grove

      Up on the hill

      the morning moon washed clean.

      Thin dogs no longer

      leap in the sunlight,

      and I walk, easily, up the path.

      The gatekeeper snores

      in his rocking chair,

      and only the wind

      keeps him moving.

      Turning now through the yard

      I recall his eyes.

      The leaves tinged

      with inevitable grays.

      With one hand

      I pluck the olives

      off the white lattice.

      Their thick skins

      rinsed in the moonshine.

      A Singer with Eyes of Sand

      A singer with eyes of sand they said—

      the western wind

      sweeps me home,

      and I am carrying you, my desert,

      in my hands.

      FROM Two Ravens

      1976

      The Taoist Painter

      He begins with charcoal and outlines

      the yellow fringes of the trees.

      Then he rubs in the stumps, black

      and brown, with an uneasy motion

      of his thumbs. Unlike trees in the north,

      he says, I have the option of season.

      And he paints the leaves in the upswing

      of the wind, and the swans craning their necks.

      But the sunlight moving in patches

      obscures and clarifies his view.

      When he walks off in silence

      we look at his painting and stand

      astonished to see how, in chiaroscuro,

      the leaves drift to their death.

      Bruegel

      The haystacks burned to black moss.

      I tilted my head and leveled

      the mound; saw three women walking

      home in step, hefting hoes, and

      weighted by sunlight on the blades.

      Three men, of course, circled away,

      heads concealed by hats, joking,

      clearly drunk on harvest wine.

      But then the pageant slipped off

      without me; the horse loped across

      the ridge, and the sickle mender

      tuned his ears to the wind.

      The Silver Trade

      You will hammer silver into a heart

      and the dogs will leap and yell.

      No one will stop you though, and

      before learning how the body dies,

      you will smelt earrings for fuel.

      Nail my spine to wood. I cannot live.

      Under the open sky the wind

      whips the sunlight into stone.

      I thread the few stars into a crown

      and throw them behind the mountain.

      He Will Come to My Funeral with a White Flower

      He will come to my funeral with a white flower

      and spread the petals, unevenly, on my dress.

      Then he will turn, walk down the aisle, and

      raise his elbow to accompany his invisible bride.

      Oh, though he comes with me to the market

      and we buy fruit and vegetables for dinner,

      he is a hermit in the mountains, watching

      the water and the sunlight on the green stones.

      His hands skim the rise and fall, reshaping

      the ridges and making the bend a woman’s thigh.

      No one can ever be part of his village, don

      palm leaves and wear an inscrutable smile.

      When he says goodbye, I know the water in his eyes

      has been falling for centuries.

      Two Ravens

      discussed the weather?

      or, perhaps, inquired about spring?

      Two ravens, lovers, discussed my death

      as I watched.

      The Waking

      Blue plums in the pewter bowl—

      may they wake wet in the earth the wren singing

      and cull the sweetest violet.

      But the children sleep secure in blankets.

      I climbed by spinning arms and legs against walls,

      awakened waist-deep in the water-well;

      wrestled the black bull before an audience,

      beat the wind without wings,

      paced the steeds along pampas grass …

      In the morning chill

      I breathe moths in my cupped hands.

      North to Taos

      The aspen twig

      or leaf will snap: bells in the wind,

      and the hills, obsidian,

      as the stars wheeling halt;

      twig and bark curling in the fire

      kindle

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