Thinking of my old home and garden, I break
into a hundred thousand shards of mirror, not quite
identifiable, but not yet lost. They lay there
blinking partial, shifting images as the moon
paces above in its forgetting path. Shall I piece
them together? Is it time? Is it possible?

I am sunk. If I were to tell you of the swelling lake,
the tiny, unkept flowerbed, swaying, burdened trees,
you could only wonder if I was mad and perhaps lost
again on another street corner or in a conversation
with someone else you do not know…

…there was a willow that hung in the yard. We
climbed it like a pirate ship, and cut from it it’s
longer whips and spears, there raced our fleets,
commanded our steeds, fought for advantage toward
the highest branch, fell to the ground to die,
to be imprisoned, to transmute into other creatures.

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This poem takes its first line from a poem posted by Leonard Durso which has been haunting me for a couple of weeks now (‘Hearing a Flute on a Spring Night in Luoyang’ by Li Po).  If you haven’t already, please stop by Leonard’s site to read is wonderful work.  Thanks for the inspiration, Leonard!