the white boat 65
Have to fi nd me a clump of grass
-- Rabbitfootgrass? Rough Sedge? the
Giant Rye? or Fountain Grass or maybe
the tall, shivery, slim Wild Oats? --
to get down on the ground behind
and see the gigantic full moon through
as Shibata Zeshira has demonstrated, in
ink, lacquer, and silver.
At last the big moon cleared the grove on the seacliff
only to catch in and then have to drag along
that throw of thin drab fi brous cloud.
How fi ne if Tsukioka Yoshi-
toshi could be standing here this dawn
at the window to see the white moon hanging
a little while from the white limb
high in the sycamore and the big fl icker black
in silhouette against it, clinging to
a thin, jointed, sharply-bent-down twig
and jabbing the whole length of his bill into one
of our hundreds of prime, dead-ripe persimmons.
Going to Pine Mountain again!
after many years, and just because yesterday
a friend spoke of his own recent visit.
The moon will rise and entangle
itself in the huge old pines up there; and
when that happens -- I'll be exactly where?