I’ve fed dead fish
At Padlock Lake,
Five miles above
An old sluice gate.
Over yon way,
Beyond game-sedge,
A calf eats hay
At Ghost Farm’s edge;
I knew, like you,
From early ages
Through hardship and harm,
Through old Autumn breezes
Cold as a fist,
This inability to wish,
We dreamt of byres and
Troughs instead.
We pass by a polite
Chinese scientist
With one arm
And owls woven
On grey lapels.
Yon farmer exists
In a caravan balancing
Precariously
On rusting teeth.
Brambles and briar
Nettles and dock,
A solitary robin,
Red from the cross,
Her songs could span
An albatross, in flight,
Over oceans of moss.
Years later
I found a certain haven,
Pulling those fish ribs
From a peaty bog,
Not far from where
They found a body within
A concrete outflow pipe,
Naked, leaking, exposed.
Sometimes even gods
Of parks and lakes
Make human-seeming
Basic mistakes.
Seven Hundred Jisei 