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The Gingko Tree

This is the Eastern shore. Light flatters the land. Nature is docile here. It is the time of year after the corn harvest and before the geese. It is my annual return. I live in Europe but my mother insists I come back each fall because each fall may be my father's last. The car…

A Seasonal Record

1. Spring, and so they danced mid-air. He circled and repeated until she paused to a second's locking. Gazing by the window, dishtowel in hand, I almost missed it: red and gold, two velvets shivering, then she was away. He perched on the nearest branch; dead-still, head cocked, as if to save the event, as…

from 22 Moon Poems

20/The Moon, the Whole Moon, and Nothing But the Moon Glorious, nourishing, flourishing moon, swollen with all the raw energy of time and what it does as light, I take off my hat, my coat, my tie, my shoes and socks to you. Breathing you in like an oceanic breeze, how can I expect to…

Plucking Out White Hairs

My white hairs are terribly unfeeling: Day after day I pluck them, but they grow again. They started as a single strand of silk, Then gradually became a thousand stalks of snow. I don't avoid the sniggers of beautiful women, I'm only ashamed of the children's fright. At New Year's, I passed the half-hundred mark…

A Blade of Grass

Put a blade of grass between your lips! It too is the Son of God, it too is crucified by Spring, and rises again in winter's fury: how fiery just one breath is! I was happy here, you know. We walked all one summer in the hidden paths of elder and wild strawberries; love cooled…

Mythos

trans. Finnish Jascha Kessler and the author To the evening that speaks in two thousand tongues and knows not the meaning of war, I give myself. To the nighthawk's, the nightingale's tongues, the presence unseen of all that is, whose dreams make me loved. Their speech never leaves the lips, never stales the wine, but…

Introduction to the Beyond

trans. Bulgarian Jascha Kessler & Alexander Shurbanov You were dying, fully conscious, having summoned the incredible strength you needed to go calmly, not crying, not moaning, not shuddering — to keep fear away from me. Your hand went softly cold in my hand, and led me gradually beyond to death, so as to introduce me….