It’s October and I have not
written a word in two weeks,
other than imitations of Bashō,
each yellowed page
holding an insect, a centipede perhaps,
or maybe
a small blackbird.
Nevertheless, I’m beginning to
understand his kinds of silences,
like the steadfastness of roots
undisturbed in their underworld.
That is how
I sit on the old sofa listening to
the sound of rain in the yellow trees,
the way I hear,
as they sway knots of silence,
their coldness that tightens
my skin.
It seems intentional,
lines that will cannot scrape
borders of emptiness,
like these angles of rain diving
across streams of rooftops.
I’m glad.
I don’t want to shut my eyes
and tease out words, and
find how readily they are willing
to become scraps that,
when I dot my pen against them,
circle around other lives; for instance,
these raindrops that touch water
to explain in brief rings
their already dying planets.
I let them stick to darkness, instead.
Besides,
the leaves are pretty,
the way they rot, becoming glue.
Here, like small hands,
not even they hold on.