(For my father)
The Mirror
Frances Vetter
The opposite of vanity
my father’s request for a mirror
a few days
before he died.
The Sunlight on the Garden
Louis Macneice
The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.
The Lake
Edgar Allan Poe
In youth’s spring, it was my lot
To haunt of the wide earth a spot
To which I could not love the less
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound
And the tall trees
Kusanagi
Maybe the Japanese knife man
is going to lift me,
put me in his pocket
like a tiny jade comb,
take me along with him
looking for that lost shoe.