POEMS

Prayer

I’m cutting my swallows from black silk,
China’s best, Father, so that when flying
they meet with the least amount of resistance
and thank you again for the abundance
of insects over green rice fields
this evening, the water bumpy with frog eyes
reflecting a pink west-flowing sky.

Now, I’m sewing into the material
my red heart because the dead lately
have been a little noisy in my sleep
and about this prayer, Father,
I don’t want any confusion –

I’m mud deep here
in love and would like to stay on
awhile longer at least until I get the sun right,
its light over the rim of this bowl
we all eat from, and watching
while I’m at it, the little spot fires
appearing over the back of my hands –

my age, a quiet invitation
to bird watching
where light around the gray heron,
alone in the water,
dies down, in time, to black
and what the imagination can rescue.

(from The Temple on Monday; reprinted in Be Broken to Be Whole)

SNOW

…for the monk, Sung Chol

Look at us. The strain of citizenship
shows in our faces. We work so hard
trying to be this country or that one.
But even in winter the sun warms us all alike.
If you need a name, better to assume the cover of snow
which we would never call a foreigner
on any shore when it comes
white, blowing in, so lovely
only to fill up our trees, our wells.
Its only tradition–-giving itself entirely away
in the world
and equally, to fence post or roof top
or the long road in.
Snow, like Zen, doesn’t know it’s snow.
The brown-eyed baby likes my green eyes
until you tell it otherwise. The names of things
can kill us down to the last town.
In the down-falling snow, in the slowness of it
there are only answers. They settle quietly, everywhere
on Yu Hyeung Ri. Yokohama. Chicago.

(From The Temple on Monday; reprinted in Be Broken to Be Whole)

STEEL CUT

I try to avoid logic. It always takes me to where I’ve already been and
that’s no fun. From there I head to the two cups of water in the tap
in the kitchen I have yet to put in the pan to bring to a boil. Now I’m
in the kitchen with my arm around my mother’s warm leg anytime I
want to go back there she appears. The delicate scratching on the window
is my morning warbler. She comes to sing her song. I know my rolling
oats and her music are just for me. It’s all about entitlement, what rich
people take for granted. I’m not a cello but close. Together we get me in
tune to another day of senseless pleasure. So, about now add the raisins,
not too many or they’ll swell too much which is more poem than you want
in your mouth. Remember the Greeks—everything in proportion. Writing
poetry is the heart at war with the ordinary is how I think about it so you
have to get the flame right. Of course birds come to me. There is no clear
separation between longing and warbler. What more—a palm full of nuts.
Your honey drizzled over them.

(From The Names of Birds; reprinted in Be Broken to Be Whole)