The kingdom of perception is pure emptiness.
—PO CHÜ-I
1.
I have faltered in my given duty.
It is a small sacrilege, a minor heresy.
The nature of the duty is close attention
to the ivy and its tracery on riled brick,
the buckled sidewalk, the optimistic fern,
downed lilacs brown as coffee grounds,
little twirled seedwings falling by the thousands
from the maples in May wind,
and the leaves themselves
daily greener in ripening sunlight.
To whom is their offering rendered,
and from whom derived,
these fallen things
urging their bodies upon the pavement?
There is a true name for them,
a proper term, but what is it?
2.
Casting about, lachrymose, the branches
of the trees at 4 A.M.
flush with upthrust flowers,
like white candles in blackened sconces.
All day I was admonished
to admire the beauty of this single peony
but only now, in late starlight,
do I crush its petals to my face.
Elemental silk dimmed to ash,
reddening already to the brushstroke of dawn,
its fragrance is a tendril
connecting my mind to the rain,
a root, a tap, a tether.
Such is the form of the duty,
but which is its officer,
the world or the senses?
The many languages of birds now,
refusing to reconcile,
and clouds streaming out of the darkness
like ants to the day’s bound blossom.