(no subject)
Jan. 11th, 2007 03:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
my_window_seatOne more from the old archives. And then off to bed. I'm feeling dizzy.
Huh. I really like this one.
2003-04-03 - 9:00 p.m.
Tasting Ash for Strength
In Japan,
some still burn their dead
and sift for bones among the ashes.
Snow-blinded archivists,
the family sorts through an uncle with scisssored picks,
particulate and fine,
separating
the hard matter left
behind.
The pelvic ball and socket.
The skull mounded in a drift of light ash.
Sifting for the bones,
removing the unbroken;
finding the last of one man's
stubborness,
his need calcified brittle past fire.
I could make a feast for any bone-pickers;
knots to defy the heat and any old woman's chopsticks.
There is much here still to be ground.
Wear red to this dinner, even though
it is not the custom.
Red is for celebrations.
Wear it here, because I want to go,
not as I came,
but surrounded by warmth and impropriety.
Take something in your bowl
that may be unfamiliar
and give it a name,
this fragment left undigested.
Do something else that is forbidden:
pass it, with your wooden-pincered grip
to someone else, into their stick
fingers from yours.
Allow me one more chance
to test your balance and skill
with mine.
Then bring the mortar down on anything that remains.
Give me this:
a smoothness
and a small place to sleep,
freed from my own hard edges.
Huh. I really like this one.
2003-04-03 - 9:00 p.m.
Tasting Ash for Strength
In Japan,
some still burn their dead
and sift for bones among the ashes.
Snow-blinded archivists,
the family sorts through an uncle with scisssored picks,
particulate and fine,
separating
the hard matter left
behind.
The pelvic ball and socket.
The skull mounded in a drift of light ash.
Sifting for the bones,
removing the unbroken;
finding the last of one man's
stubborness,
his need calcified brittle past fire.
I could make a feast for any bone-pickers;
knots to defy the heat and any old woman's chopsticks.
There is much here still to be ground.
Wear red to this dinner, even though
it is not the custom.
Red is for celebrations.
Wear it here, because I want to go,
not as I came,
but surrounded by warmth and impropriety.
Take something in your bowl
that may be unfamiliar
and give it a name,
this fragment left undigested.
Do something else that is forbidden:
pass it, with your wooden-pincered grip
to someone else, into their stick
fingers from yours.
Allow me one more chance
to test your balance and skill
with mine.
Then bring the mortar down on anything that remains.
Give me this:
a smoothness
and a small place to sleep,
freed from my own hard edges.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 04:29 am (UTC)got the link from my girlfriend
the poem is lovely
no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 07:48 am (UTC)N