The past is air, right here
A dripping tap, old windows, the sea
I found you through dreams
Through each embarrassed verse

The feminine strength, youth and breath
Of my burning hair
I cut a drop of water. Running stream
You shaded the window. The big tree

The growth rings were a myth,
Some sparse, some dense
Like the swing of teenage shadow
Swayed away from the window
To the sea, to the endless sky
Where I would fly

Chorus

A chorus by the water
Could be any river or stream

I wander like a vagrant
dragging the shadow of my own

deaf and awed
I tumble at the strange forks

An ancient tribe they are
An obscure gesture comforts the wind

Fruits of shrubs
Pierce into unspeakable pain

Sooner or later I will join them
As the shadow that opens the light

They count candlelight and count again
Become reflections of running water and time

No longer will I topple
In the dusk when raspberries are ripe

The familiar tunes hark back the child
who stole a white lotus in a line of Tang

Though steps waver
They lead to the virgin snow of life

Silently
A chorus sings in silence

Ferry

Now I realize how much I loved traveling
As a young child, when street lamps were dim
And the wind too soft to catch
The sea is an enormous dream

On cloudy Sundays
My father would shake hands with a ferry
We sailed between dock and dock, and did not get off
Or follow the waves that came to shore

I just learned how to walk without staggering
And still talked to the army of ants before rain
A daughter sailed with her father, until an anonymous hand
Put a cloak of snooze on waters and streets

The whistles summoned insects and me
Loud, piercing and masculine
I dropped a song as we hurried back
The captain’s beard was winking

The boy in a poem steals a white lotus
I sent it back to the blue waves
He was my first friend who lives in words
Like Pan, he does not grow or age

I stared at the waves and they spoke to me
Ripples on the surface of a dream
Morning would visit and kiss our foreheads
Petals would rise and float away

My father helped me onto the bow
High and lean, like each lonely road
Someone in white robes riding a camel
Figures and figures dancing in the blue cradle

I sensed my father’s fear as he loosed hands
And took a picture the moment I smiled
At three I felt the chill in the wind
As a traveler does

Chilblains

At ten I stopped
Playing the accordion in the wind
The black and white keys slumbered
In winter, a chilly and damp afternoon
A Thursday of bruise
My mother back early
“Grandpa passed away.”

I used to play in the first row
Fingers dancing like spring bamboos
In sun, in rain, in blindness
Faster and faster
Pressing the magic switches
Of love and pain, in a row. Your face
Would light up at the back window
When the last note muted
Your hands, warm as sweet potatoes
Roasting on a metal trunk, took me home
My old accordion on your back
Bending over
Only for his granddaughter
No ghosts or monsters in a barley mow

Now your hands gone
To chase a brush and a shovel
Leaving mine cold and red
Wrapped by the thorns of ice
Bitten by the bees of winter
My heart swollen
Like a balloon filled with salt and water
When it flew, the wind paused
And tasted bitter

At ten I got chilblains
Fingers puff and stiff
Music swelling
I stopped
Playing polka, or played slowly
Slower than the growth of prints
In your palms. Chilblains are caused
By exposure to cold and grief
They came back every winter
But you