Canto XXXVIII (after Buson & Issa)
        —for Mai Wagner

      Memory's green inch—
sunlight's white snow
      bright on August pine

      needle. Memory's green
inch—half-moon
      in morning sky, the pine

      tree on the near hill,
its tip taller than the tip
      of the distant mountain—

      by a green inch. Memory's
sky blue through branches
      of the pine, the ocean

      smells of resin when wind
blows the ocean
      through the pines. Or no,

      I'm wrong, it is not
snow, it is the morning
      dew in afternoon light, so bright

      of the August sun—memory's
green wish. The man writing poems
      points the way with a poem.

      The man who asked the way
has disappeared. The deer bounding
      away stops to see what

      scared it. Some sound. Spare
no arrows, sparrows—
      sing. I want a wound.

      All my life written down
with a pine needle—
      memory's green inch:

      I've never been closer
to that sound across
      a river.

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Copyright © 2021 Dan Beachy-Quick All rights reserved
from Copper Nickel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission