A Leading, 2
From blinding sunlight, we are rendered with love,
like a sky painted with summoning music,
generations of waves from uncommon places,
brightened by asters.
I share this with all, a promise,
as solid as rain lasting all day —
a perfect storm
for what needs to grow.
~ ~
For what needs to grow?
A rendering song
planting in spring when rain is soft
hammers inside a piano during an adagio.
This is the life we have.
None other — where a tree will grow
and die without us seeing it, a history
beneath us. By the time we meet,
the weight of daylight
will mist and break
in a message.
We might miss it. We might pass by,
rain branching into a sonata.
~ ~
Rain branching into a sonata
singing promises. We are in
a pattern of light finding the unknown,
a river accepting secrets,
a brief arrival, a quick withdrawal,
a shining laughter.
~ ~
A shining laughter
gentles the soil,
ancient beliefs being fulfilled,
a harmony
from across the unknown. It is
what we need.
~ ~
What we need
has come full circle,
a round of music.
There will be more messages —
some other life we never lived
inside music raining.
Night will be strolling
near a river, bringing secret letters,
laughing at its own audacity,
branching out to us,
lights worth finding,
in blue irises, in the remnant of wind.
Early Spring in February
Never trust the earlier than normal spring
arriving in February, one of the dreariest months
of escalating determined snow. Never trust
small poking green edges of spring.
Never trust snowmelt,
puddling oozes of mud and grass
flattened to the ground listening
for the true spring,
knowing it’s too early, too deceiving,
and can go back to winter quickly.
It is one o’clock in the afternoon.
The sky suddenly greys over.
Tree branches fight the wind,
waving it away like hands, Go away.
Earlier, I had walked the steep hill to the park
where the community garden has gone to waste —
the unpicked mush of cabbages; frail tomato stalks;
the Strauss waltz of overgrowth and weeds.
I was slightly out of breath from the incline
and lack of exercise during the winter.
The world cannot make up its mind: grow
or slumber under snow or compost the ruins
of last season or realize spring is too soon.
Now, I am back at the desk, typing, music coming
from my open window, blown in.
Snow lifts its hands off the earth.
I keep expecting rain or snow or sparrows
darting back and forth like typing words.
South Wind, Clear Sky
Katsushika Hokusai, Thirty-Six Views of Fuji, Picture # 2 (shows a “red Fuji”)
Geese unravel white ribbons everywhere, streaking across the sky. Monks try to clear a path of stones, while other monks sweep the stones back. The south wind barks like a dog. Couples throw plates in anger. Birds gush-away for winter. Spiders scatter before a broom catches them. The clouds are gone. My mind was already scattered in that last wind.
All this energy is unsettling the world. It is all useless activity.
Mount Fuji settles into the hot sunset, an afterimage blending into the water, a red glow diminishing like a woman’s nipple.
My wife is waiting for me, calling from distance and separation. When I finally will return, I hope her sadness will part as curtains. Her happiness will be wind chimes, and my hands will paint all over her body. Geese will splash up into the blank sky.
Red Fuji at night —
the eyes of cranes settling,
never see enough.
Martin Willitts Jr has 24 chapbooks including the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 16 full-length collections including the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World”. His recent book is "Unfolding Towards Love" (Wipf and Stock).
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