Читать книгу The Glass Constellation - Arthur Sze - Страница 46

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 clusters of sparks.

Steer north, then, to Taos, where

the river, running deeper, cuts a gorge,

and at midnight the moon

waxes; minnows scatter

at your step,

the boat is moored to sky.

Three a.m., in Winter

When I went to Zuni,

my mind was a singing arrow; the black desert

was shining, and I flew,

a green peyote bird, in the wind’s eye …

It’s three a.m., and

the road to Zuni is buried in snow.

Thinking of you, I taste green wine,

I touch sparks, I fly.

Lament

Let me pick

olives in the moonlight.

Let me ride

a pale green horse.

Let me taste the autumn fires.

Or else,

let me die in a war.

No Hieroglyphics

No hieroglyphics but the bird singing in the throat of the tree.

When I walk home, my hair bristling, hear you read

by the hearth in slow fire. No calendars

to twist days into years or

months back to seconds.

We live in fear.

But open our

lives to the sea.

Walk on water with the

moon. Stars, stars! No one to

teach. That the long day slips into night.

As the mind withers in the tree. But only to sail

a boat without wind. Down the endless river. The sand running out.

Wang Wei

At my window

the rain raves, raves about dying,

and does not

hear in the bamboo

a zither, which, plucked,

inebriates the birds

and brings closer to the heart

the moon.

Morning Shutters

We extend arms

infinitely long

into the sunrise.

Then the shutters close,

and we begin

the slow, painful

step of learning

shadows in the dark.

My hand goes to your thigh.

The hills

high above us

shine in the heat.

Now, the whites of your eyes

are filled

with the lost years.

Lupine

I planted lupine and nasturtiums

in the dark April dirt. Who heard the passing

cars or trucks? I was held

by your face, eclipsed, in partial light.

I sip hibiscus tea, and am at peace

in the purple dusk.

“Kwan, kwan,” cries a bird, distant,

in the pines.

Do Not Speak Keresan to a Mescalero Apache

Do not speak

Keresan to a Mescalero Apache,

but cultivate

private languages;

a cottonwood

as it disintegrates into gold,

or a house

nailed into the earth:

the dirt road

into that reservation

is unmarked.