make possible. The red that rolled away
gave rise to thoughts of rolling hills, and so
I told myself, it is a pinch that pays.
Just in the nick of time, I'm hardly doomed
but free to choose my way and free to find
great pleasure in the choosing: jumping off
the table, throwing down the bloody smock
and bolting from the operating room,
I'm the poor fool who stumbles up the aisle
and I'm the sweet face at the other end
who blesses and forgives; I'm in a cloak
behind a pillar, spying on a thief
who answers to my name. Come find me on
the summer lawns, the moonlit winter rinks
and drag me back to where the spongy lumps
coagulate and darken; counsel me
to get down on my knees and look at what
I left behind; implore me to admit
that all the red is realer than the roads
I hastily, unthinkingly pursued;
however many stumps are floating in
the pulp like ghosts of shapes that might have been,
however many stares are telling me to
clean up the mess, it is no mess of mine.
STEPHEN KUUSISTO
Harvest
My Chinese doctor tells me to sit in the park, that green,
the very color, will forestall blindness, and so I sit
under the hemlocks planted by Baptists.
My temporal task is to hear music,
drink a cup of chrysanthemum tea,
admire the white moon of the morning,
even if my eyes tell me there are two moons.
It's almost a game: this superstition,
my slow idolatry of leaves,
the sparrows hopping as if on fire.
