A Japanese Poem

one tree, many sides
each stem holds the life
of a Japanese poem

Yesterday slips by
So quietly you can hear the leaves
Outside piling one onto another
There is the taste of spring
Haunting the wet avenues
And the gold-edged crowns of buildings
Hanging-on to the late winter sun.
Just this once I want to believe the
Fluid conversations of cloud puppets
Graceful and perfect in home-movie silhouettes
And light enough to believe
We can still live under water.

If I could touch the face of a fountain
And enter it without leaving a wrinkle
I would give my new language the name
Of seconds found in wide open eyes
And the wine-cellar languor of
Calabrian ruins meting out decadence
Among crumbling walls and ceramic dawns.
I would read aloud the echoes of names
Shouted under bridges and the promises
Carved into wooden dreams
And hand-painted for all the world to see.

— James Norman Kerns
California