The gap between wanting and having is
Great.
What does the house care when brooms
Shake?
The minaret
When the sky breaks
Over it?
Nothing.
The tall trees are whispering to the wind
That they are comely.
The wind brings its tidy joy
And in its wake,
Removes.
from The Heaven-Sent LeafFind it in the library
Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2008
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.
You color all. Is this longing?
Or private.
Is it private to speak in the morning,
The birdsong like knives?
We sit on this bench while this wind swirls and billows.
This setting is love, yet we sit on this bench, yet we listen to birdsong.
This color, your brain, which is bluer than water.
I touch it, your brain, which is cooler than water.
I wonder, your brain, when it falters, will it be so cold?
We buffet on another with our bodies, with our slackened
Hearts. I put myself in it, your body, which aches.
I put myself in it, your brain,
Which is cooler than water.
from The Heaven-Sent LeafFind it in the library
Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2008
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.
How much time do we waste in this way?
With this wish to be penniless, free?
I am feeling these, the confines of the spirit, so I must give in.
To this scene: of a boy in a sandbox, now playing,
His castle is drying to wind.
He thinks that time belongs to him,
That time does not annihilate according to its ancient will.
He stands in the box, his palms out, the loud wind passing over his fingers.
Within his small fingers, the granules of pleasure.
Within his small pleasure, the granules of need.
Let us slake this mind to nothingness,
This body, then to nothingness.
Let us call this the genius of time.
from The Heaven-Sent LeafFind it in the library
Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2008
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.
