STORM BRIDGE MOONLIGHT




I.    Bamboo spring sprouts rise like a challenge
 
to the quiet breeze outside my doorway,

pathfinder that it is, advance guard
 
to the next day's stormy confusion.

The sake has become a silver mirror

to reflect both fragile moonbeam slivers

and solitary evening thoughts

of previous evening respites. The lone pine

casts a long and nostalgic shadow 

on my heart as I watch the bamboo bend,

each small gust through fronds

a cold chill winter wind

through my recollections,

till the shadows merge in dusky confluence.

High, high upon the deceitful nighttime zephyr

a mournful No flute confesses sad secrets,

its rusty voice filled with reproach for untold eons

of neglect and regretful misunderstanding.

Too late.

Time is left only to sing a brief

and sad refrain

of moments gone forever,

passed beyond any mortal grasp

or capture.

II.    Tomorrow the storms,

full with fury and nature's unthinking

devastation. Wind and tumult exalting,

the rain returns to pound the mere hopes

of fragile human dust

with vengeance born of

disregard for man's weak and vulnerable pleas.

III.    Today a death,

tomorrow a love,

there seems no rhythm,  no constancy,

just pragmatic blunder on the poorly illuminated

stage of daily experience.

Last week, while reveling in wind and icy snow,

the spirit in the skis sang a dangerous

and melancholy song along the crust

of the Sierra ridge. I listened....

and recognized a painful and lovely memory

dancing through the umbra

of the wind-swept wastes.

It was ameliorated, fortune

and faith be praised,

by distracting contrapuntal melodies

of far removed and distant

times and events…

the ever-present tide of the moment.

IV.    Then, this evening, returning home
 
from the sad web of loss spun

in the temple of mortality today,

my eyes fell upon the pictures conspicuous on the butsudan...

The Husky dog, caught forever smiling,

as the great northern dogs are wont to do

perpetually, while by its side

the slim Asian woman leaning forever

on her hiking staff, outlined by trees

frozen on the flanks of summer hills.

It Is a self-invoked sadness

to confront these painful images

in all the perfect imagery

of their capture. A walking-on of coals,

a worrying of bites, insect-delivered

upon slender, insatiable feet.

And yet,

they continue, too important to ever

run the risk of being banished

to dark containers as mere memories

frozen on paper

by the unforgiving yet not entirely heartless

eye of the camera.

V.    The rice Is nearly finished. The sake cup now empty.

An evening of sweet and sour wondering has drained them, as all

other elements of a sorrowful dream

flee quickly to oblivion with the rising of the sun a’morn.

Perhaps sleep will be merciful,

a wooden draught of unconscious moments,

spanning two shores

In non-conductive, striding boots.....

For the worst,

and most painful demons of recollection

sow their seeds of regret

in the smallest hours of the

friendless night

when even the most hope-filled

song of morning's promise

shrivels in mid-utterance.

A prayer for dawn,

and then

an endless swim

in the seas of night...

no bridge

to greet the storms of morning...